


Don't you wish it was true

by huffletiika



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: A lot of Flashbacks, Engagement, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Gendry is a Baratheon, Gendry's a blacksmith, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, also some angst but everything will be alright, and they were roommates!, but not so slow, don't know yet how much smut but there will be some, i promise fluff, it's mostly a funny story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:00:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22424476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huffletiika/pseuds/huffletiika
Summary: “What did you say to her?”She bit her lip and stayed silent for a while, closing her eyes when she finally opened her mouth to speak.“I told her we were more than friends,” she whispered, and he felt his heart racing.Had she told her parents that they were dating?Was she mad?“Ok, let me ask you something,” he spoke slowly. “How’s telling your parents that we are more than friends, going to make it easier for them to accept that we are living together?” He looked back at her. “Isn’t it, like… worse?”She gulped.“Well, I didn’t tell my mother we were just dating.” For a second he thought he had misunderstood her, that she might have told them that they were best friends, instead of just friends, and felt ashamed. But, then she continued speaking, and for a second there he froze. “I told them we were engaged.”ORThat time when Arya told her conservative parents that she was engaged to her best friend, so they wouldn't mind them living together, and unleashed a series of events that could change everything between them forever. For better or worse, that remains to be unknown.
Relationships: (minor/mentioned):, Arya Stark/Gendry Waters, Catelyn Stark/Ned Stark, Lyanna Mormont/Rickon Stark, Meera Reed/Bran Stark
Comments: 210
Kudos: 316





	1. The Lie

There are few things Gendry enjoys doing. Like, going to Hot Pie’s to have one of his friend’s special desserts, or spending the whole day in his forge hitting metal until making a new piece to add to his small store. But, spending his Friday night sitting on the couch, watching Netflix movies while having some beers and a lot of junk food with his best friend, that was on top of them all.

He doesn’t even remember when the tradition started. It’s definitely been before they became roommates, but after she had moved to King’s Landing to get her degree in Social Work. It just happened naturally. She might have invited him to hang out in her place some Friday night they didn’t have any other things to do, and then the next one, and the next one, until it was kind of something they just did.

Then, Grey (his ex-roommate) had decided to move with his fiancée, so he had to look for another place to stay. But, all the places he saw were too expensive for him to be able to pay the rent by himself, as he also has to pay rent for his forge and store. And, when he looked for rooms for rent, he just couldn’t imagine himself living in those places, or with those people to be honest. It just didn’t seem right. He could have asked his father to let him stay in one of his properties for a while, of course, but it didn’t feel right. So, for a couple of weeks, he stayed in a pull-out couch in his store, but the place doesn’t have a kitchen or a shower in the bathroom, so he had to ask Davos (his tenant) to allow him to use his, but he didn’t want to continue to be a nuisance for the old man. What if he decided he was too annoying to let him continue renting the place? He needs the forge and the store to continue being financially stable.

The idea to move with Arya had come one day when he had asked his best friend If he could use her shower to get ready for a meeting with the owner of a gallery, who wanted to display some of his pieces in an exposition about metalwork. He was covered in sweat and soot after spending the whole day at the forge, and Davos was having some visitors in his place, so he didn’t want to disturb.

“Yes, Gendry. You can take that shower in my place,” she had told him. “Why didn’t you ask earlier?” She moved away, allowing him to enter her place.

He loved Arya’s place, it was roomy, and so her.

“I didn’t want to bother,” he replied and heard her snort.

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” she said, closing the front door. “You’re my best friend, this is your place too,” she added, and then walked inside the place, suddenly stopping when she approached the living room as something had hit her.

“Arya?” he asked, coming closer to try to make sure she was alright.

She had the biggest smile on her face, one of those she usually has when she’d got an idea he wouldn’t like at all, but that he would have to follow anyway because he could never say no to her.

It was like she had done a curse on him.

“This is your place too,” she said, turning to see him.

“Yes, you already said th–”

She cut him off.

“Have you found a place to live?” she asked, suddenly enthusiastic.

“If I had I wouldn’t be asking you to let me use your shower,” he replied. “Seriously, Arry. What–”

She did it again.

“I think you should move here,” she said, and he felt his brain stopped working for a whole minute. Maybe it was less than that, but it really felt that long. “I mean, you’re my best friend, and you spend a whole lot of time here anyway,” she continued, when no words came out of his mouth. “I have a spare room since Sansa got herself transferred to the Vale, after the whole Joffrey fiasco, and your shop is not very far. It’s not even a five-minutes’ drive”.

“I don’t want to be a load for you,” he said, ruffling his ebony hair.

“You wouldn’t be,” she said, looking way too excited about her idea. “Look, think about it this way: you get a place to stay, with a kitchen and your own bathroom with a shower, and I get someone to split the bills with. Plus, you would be taking the important responsibility to make sure I won’t make the apartment explode, and to walk Nymeria in the mornings since I hate waking up early.” She pointed at said dog, a grey-furred husky, who was taking a nap at the foot of the couch.

Gendry sighed, it wasn’t a bad idea.

“To be honest, I believe I would be the privileged one with this agreement,” she concluded and looked at him waiting for an answer.

And, because he couldn’t find any flaw on her logic (he really needed to move from his shop), he accepted her proposal to move to her apartment but assured her that he would continue looking for another place to live, as he didn’t want her family thinking that he was taking advantage of her hospitality.

But, the real reason he couldn't see that as a permanent agreement was because he was totally and hopelessly _in love_ with her. How could he live under the same roof as the girl who occupied all his wildest dreams, knowing that it could never happen? She was his best friend, the only person he trusted and cared that much about, and he would never do anything to spoil that.

They met each other when he was fifteen and she was eleven.

His mother had insisted that he went to some stupid Christmas dinner his father was hosting because even if Robert Baratheon had another family now, he was still his son. So, there he was, wearing a stupid suit his father’s assistant got for him, and that didn’t even fit well (he might have grown a bit taller those days), and surrounded by a lot of fancy people who were constantly saying how much he looked like his father when he was younger to start a conversation. He did his best to evade them all, hiding in the back, making himself invisible until he heard it.

“Look, it’s Arya Horse-face!” chanted a girl.

“What a beautiful dress!” said another female voice, and Gendry tried to ignore the girl’s chat. “What a shame it’s wasted on someone like you,” said girl added, and he felt sorry for the poor soul those comments were aimed.

“I didn’t recognize you without the mud in your hair,” a boy’s voice sounded, and he looked in that direction. It was his half-brother, Joffrey, and there were two girls standing beside him, one of them was tall with reddish hair, and the other had brown hair.

“Leave me alone!” said a girlish voice, and he noticed that in front of his brother and his friends was another girl.

This one wasn’t tall like the other girls, not at all, and her hair was brown and short. Too short for how girls used to wear it, especially to these kinds of events, making him think that she might have had an unfortunate encounter with a bad hairdresser. He started walking in their direction without even noticing, until he got behind the girl, facing Joffrey and the other two.

“You heard the girl, leave her alone,” he looked directly at his half-brother. “Or I will tell father you’re being mean to a girl.”

He hated each word of that threat.

Joffrey snorted but urged his companions to follow him to find something more _interesting_ to do. He looked at the little girl, and she looked at him like she could throw daggers.

“I can defend myself!” she said, and he frowned.

He wasn’t expecting to be praised for his act of chivalry, of course not, but a ‘ _thanks’_ wouldn’t have hurt.

He rolled his eyes and folded his arms over his chest.

“Yeah, I see how good you were doing so far.”

She snorted.

“You’re Joffrey’s brother?” she asked, after almost a minute, ignoring his last words.

“Unfortunately,” Gendry replied and saw her chuckle. “My mom and Robert dated for a while, and I was the result of that,” he shrugged and saw her nod.

They stayed silent for a while.

“They had to cut my hair because Jeyne put gum in it,” she admitted, and he supposed it was one of the girls who was bothering her earlier.

“If you have any revenge plan, I’m in,” he said, and she started laughing. It was a beautiful sound, he thought. Almost as beautiful as his mother’s singing voice.

“I’m Arya,” she said, offering her hand.

He took it.

“Gendry.”

It hadn’t been then when he had fallen in love, of course.

Those feelings were born with time, evolving little by little every time their paths met. First, was that summer, as he spent it with his father and his other family in Storm’s End, where the Starks were also invited. Later, those days when she and her sister (the red-head who was bothering her at the party) accompanied their father on a business trip to King’s Landing when he got to introduce her to Hot Pie and his amazing desserts. A couple of years later, when she spent the whole night face-timing him while he waited at the hospital for any news on his mother’s condition after she had had a stroke. And then, when she convinced her father to fly with her all the way from Winterfell, to be with him when he was seventeen years old and had to put the person he loved the most in a grave.

She had been his best-friend then.

He hadn’t seen her as any different than that.

The turning point happened years later when she moved to the capital to study at King’s Landing University, as her sister had been doing for the last couple of years. He was on his last year at Art’s School, where he got a full scholarship thanks to his metalwork teacher from High School, Mr. Mott. A class he got into so he could hit things with a hammer, and let out all the anger he felt after losing his mother at such a young age.

They hadn’t seen or spoke with each other for a while. He was so absorbed in his classes and projects that he just shut the rest of the world, rejecting invitations to his father’s events, and completely avoiding socializing. And she seemed to be minding her own business as well. Hot Pie had told him that she was at some exchange program in Braavos, working for some humanitarian organization there during her summer and that she had sent him a picture with some weird dude he was sure she was dating.

Gendry doesn’t like to think about that.

The dude looked really old.

Because of that, he didn’t expect her to call him any time soon, but it happened right after he left a reunion with his thesis advisor. She’d asked him to meet at Hot Pie’s that afternoon and he accepted, why wouldn’t he? She was his best friend, and it was nice that she was there, and that he could see her again. But, when she came into the restaurant and his eyes landed on her figure, he felt how his jaw dropped and his heart skipped a beat.

She was gorgeous. Her hair was the longest he had ever seen it, and her face showed so maturity he’d had had a hard time recognizing her if it wasn’t for her big grey eyes. Then, his sight landed on her figure and he could see curves that she hadn’t had before, or perhaps he hadn’t noticed them. She was wearing a white blouse with high-waisted printed shorts and combat boots that let him see her long and very toned legs. _How would it feel to have those legs tight around me as I–_ he stopped that train of thoughts before an image could be materialized in his head.

“A-Arya?” he got to say when she approached his booth. “You are… I mean–” he clumsily stood. “You look good,” he concluded, and she smiled up at him, making him feel kind of stupid for reacting that way after seeing her again.

He wanted to kick himself.

“You look good too, Bull,” she said, using that old nickname that only she was allowed to use, and pulled him into a hug that he wasn’t expecting, but that he easily melted into, putting his arms around her and hiding his face in her hair to fill his lungs with her delicious essence.

He missed her, more than anything. She was the only person who didn’t treat him with pity after he lost his mother, or pressured him to express his feelings about it. She only had to be there. She traveled all the way from Winterfell with her father that night to take his hand during the funeral, and that’s all he needed, more than any word of comfort anyone could say. And, that’s why he did his best to put aside those first thoughts, considering they had come only because of the shock of seeing her so changed, looking more like a woman than the girl he remembered.

After that, they had talked the whole evening, and suddenly it was like time hadn’t passed, and they were still those who they used to be, just older, with more stories to tell to each other. But, as they continued seeing each other in between classes and work hours, he noticed that those thoughts that he had had when he saw her enter to Hot Pie’s didn’t disappear, they came back again and again, unannounced, making him feel like a teenager. When she laughed, he could only focus in how beautiful she looked doing it, when she bit her lips he thought how would it feel to kiss them, when she talked about her classes he couldn’t help feel trapped in her voice, and when she touched him in some way, he imagined how her fingertips would feel as they caressed every inch of his skin. His nights became restless, filled with images that he wanted to get rid of. She was his best friend, for fuck’s sake! He felt like the worst person in the world for wishing for more than what he had with her when her friendship was the best thing that could have ever happened to him and should have been more than enough.

And then she had asked him to move with her.

A couple of days after he moved in, he found her in the kitchen making pancakes, wearing one of his hoodies because _‘I spilled juice on my pajamas by accident and found it at the laundry. You don’t mind, right? You were going to wash it anyway’_ and he had to bite his tongue after saying it was okay, and then excused himself to go take a cold shower because his hoodie was so big on her small body he could only think of the fact it looked like she wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

But, as time passed, he did his best to accustom himself to being around her all the time without feeling like a hormonal idiot, getting into a routine, and putting every improper thought aside. He would wake up early and walk Nymeria, and come back to the apartment to find her making breakfast, already wearing her sports gear to go to The Hound’s Gym. He’d take a shower while she finishes, and then they would have breakfast together before leaving. He’d stay the whole day in his store, attending customers and working in the forge, and then he would get home, cook dinner and wait for Arya to come back from her classes or from walking Nym. Then, they would have dinner together, and if she doesn’t have to do any paper or study for an exam, they would watch a movie, or play video-games until it’s time to go to sleep.

She’d always kick his ass when they played Smash Bros.

They were both sitting on the couch, just like another night, watching some stupid rom-com on Netflix and filling their stomachs with microwave-made popcorn and beers, when she suddenly paused it and turned to gaze at him with a look that made him worry. She seemed concerned, almost apologetic like there was something she wanted to tell him and didn’t know the correct words to make it easier for him. It was a softer, less life or death threat version of the look that the doctor gave him before delivering the bad news about his mother, but he still hated it.

He was about to ask her what was wrong, but she spoke first.

“My parents are coming,” she said, and he blinked several times, confused. Was it what she wanted to tell him? And, if so, why the worried expression? He smiled, genuinely. He knew how much she missed her family, and was glad to see Mr. Stark again.

Eddard Stark had been a great company during her mother’s funeral, as his father didn’t even attend, being too drunk that day to even stand from bed.

“That’s great, Arya!” he exclaimed, and expected a smile to appear on her lips, but it never came. He frowned. “What’s wrong?”

He didn’t understand why she was unhappy about her parents coming to visit her. Of course, he knew her relationship with her mother wasn’t the best, but that’s not reason enough for her to be so distressed.

“They want to come to the apartment, and I–” Arya took a deep breath. “I hadn’t told them before that you were living here,” she concluded, looking so worried about his reaction that for a second there he didn’t think about the implications of her words.

So, when he caught up he felt stupid.

“Oh,” he said.

Arya’s parents, mostly her mother, were very conservative. For them, a girl must be very careful with her virtue and reputation over all things, and so living with a man who wasn’t her family or husband was severely inappropriate. He liked the couple, but those beliefs were stupid, too backward. He had thought about that when she first suggested him to move with her. But, none of her family lived in King’s Landing anymore, her parents rarely visited the capital, and _he would have found another place to live soon_ , so he just told himself that he didn’t need to worry about that.

But, now he had.

“How much time do I have?” he asked. “I think I can move back to the studio, Davos wouldn’t mind if I–”

“You’re not moving out!” she cut him off, still looking very anxious.

“I have to, Arry,” Gendry shrugged. “I don’t want you to have an argument with your parents because of me.” He tried to stand, but she stopped him putting her hand over his legs. he would lie if he said he didn't feel a shiver running through his entire body due to that simple contact.

“You don’t have to move out,” she repeated. “I already told them you are living with me, and they are good with that. But–” she bit her lip, looking like she was about to have a panic attack.

“But?” he asked, softly, waiting for her to continue.

It couldn’t be that bad if her parents were good with them being roommates, he thought.

He was wrong.

“Well, I had to lie to them,” she said and looked up at him with an apologetic grin. He gulped. He knew he wouldn’t like what’s coming. “You know how’s my mom. I could feel that she was about to flip out when I told her I was living with you, and it just came out of my mouth… I didn’t even think about it.”

That couldn’t mean any good, he knew it.

But still, he asked.

“What did you say to her?”

She bit her lip and stayed silent for a while, closing her eyes when she finally opened her mouth to speak.

“I told her we were more than friends,” she whispered, and he felt his heart racing.

Had she told her parents that they were dating?

Was she mad?

“Ok, let me ask you something,” he spoke slowly. “How’s telling your parents that we are _more than friends_ , going to make it easier for them to accept that we are living together?” He looked back at her. “Isn’t it, like… worse?”

She gulped.

“Well, I didn’t tell my mother we were just dating.” For a second he thought he had misunderstood her, that she might have told them that they were best friends, instead of just friends, and felt ashamed. But, then she continued speaking, and for a second there he froze. “I told them we were engaged.”

What?

He looked at her eyes, trying to find in them any hint that she was joking, but there was none. She had actually told her parents that they were engaged.

“For fuck’s sake, Arya!” he shouted, getting up from the couch.

“I know, I know… I’m sorry!” she said, still on the couch. “I panicked!”

“You panicked?!” Gendry paced around the room, feeling like a trapped animal. Was it so hot in there before? “You fucking told your mother that we were engaged because you panicked?” He couldn’t believe this.

Yes, he had dreamed of being able to voice his feelings, and her telling him her feelings were the same, and with them getting together and potentially in a far future getting engaged, if that’s what she wanted, of course. But, apparently, they were already engaged, and without him knowing. He felt frustrated, mad, out of himself, and he couldn’t even explain to her why, because it would mean telling her the truth, and he wouldn’t. He didn’t want to lose her friendship.

She muttered something under her breath, but he couldn’t catch a word.

“What?” he asked, and she looked up at him.

“I just don’t get why you are so mad about this!” she said, ravenous. “I know it was stupid, but nothing else came to my mind at the moment. You know how I get because of my mother! Also, am I so unattractive for you that you couldn’t even pretend to be my betrothed for a night?” Her voice got lower at the last words, but he still got to hear them.

He stopped pacing and looked back at her, surprised.

“I didn’t say that...”

“You didn’t have to,” she folded her arms over her chest. “That’s what I get from how you’re acting right now.”

He raked his hands in his hair.

“You’re not _unattractive_ , Arya,” he said, trying to control his nerves. “Stop self-flagellating yourself with the stupid things your sister and her friends used to say. You’re beautiful, ok? Any man would be lucky to have you.” His hands were shaking, but he tried to do his best to hide it so she wouldn’t notice. _Oh, how I wished it was me_ , he thought. “But, have you thought about how all of this is a bad idea? Do you think your parents will keep the info that their daughter is engaged to themselves? No, they are going to tell your siblings, and they are going to tell their friends, and soon it will blow in our faces,” he sat on one of the armchairs and scratched his nape. “I’m surprised I don’t have any calls from Robert, yet,” he added, and couldn’t help a soft snort that came out of his mouth.

So many times, his father asked him if there was something going on between him and ‘ _Ned’s girl’_ , telling him how much he had loved her aunt, and how Baratheon men seem to have a soft spot for Stark girls, and he had replied that they were just friends. Best friends, actually. How will he tell him that they were actually engaged now? He sighed.

“I didn’t–” she bit the skin around her thumb, looking at him like a lost fawn. She looked so adorable he almost felt pity for her. “I’m sorry, ok? I put you into something you clearly don’t like. I will call mom and tell her that I was joking, and we will see what we do for their visit.” She looked down. “It’s just–” she shook her head. “Forget it, I won’t make you do something you’d hate just because I’m stupid and couldn’t be sincere with my mom for once. I guess I still care too much about what she thinks of me, even if I’m an adult and I have my own place now, but she was so glad when I told her that I had a stable relationship with someone, that I–.”

Without him giving it an order, his body moved from the chair he was sitting on to kneeling in front of her during her whole speech, taking her hands in his, and trying to find her grey gaze with his. All his anger was long forgotten.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he said, softly. She looked at his eyes, and for a second there he forgot he was going to say. “Let’s do it,” he finally said, thinking about how he wouldn’t care to get to take her hand and pretend she loved him too.

It was only going to be a dinner with her parents, and maybe a couple of publications in social media so her family believes it, and it would be just to be themselves with a little bit more PDA. They could even tell their friends the truth, they wouldn’t be any reason to hide it from them. Hot Pie will have the laugh of his life, and his cousin Shireen will love having something to blackmail him with. And then, when he finds another place where to move (as in his original plan), they will just tell everyone that they figured out they were better of as friends and break their supposed engagement, keeping their very normal friendship status.

Who was he kidding? It was totally going to blow up in their faces. Or, at least in his, because he will have a part of his dreams coming true, knowing someday it will be all over, and he would have to act as if nothing had happened.

She looked at him, surprised by his sudden change of mind.

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to do something you don’t want only because I–”

“I’m sure,” he didn't let her finish that sentence. “Let’s do this.”

She smiled, and he thought that her smile at that moment was worth getting his heart broken in the near future. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I wrote this thanks to some weird dream I had once.
> 
> I know, weird shit.
> 
> Thanks to snapdragon76 for being my Beta and proofread it because english is not my first language and she has been very nice helping me with grammar and stuff <3!
> 
> Hope you like this, and leave comments. I love to read what people thinks about what I write.


	2. The Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ok, so… we are officially engaged,” she said, showing him the ring in her finger, a mischievous smile on her face. “Now what?”
> 
> He came back in front of the isle, resting his elbows on the surface. 
> 
> “No idea, I have zero experience on the matter,” he said, and she chuckled.
> 
> “Me neither,” she replied, and they both started laughing like they had lost their minds.
> 
> Maybe they had.

It’s been a week since they’ve agreed to pretend to be engaged in front of her parents, who will be there in a couple of days, and Arya still didn’t know what they were going to do. They haven’t done any planning, a believable script that justifies how they went from being just friends to engaged in the blink of an eye, and that’s driving her insane, because her siblings have started to call her to ask about the news of her engagement and she had had to say things like ‘ _It’s a long story_ ’ and ‘ _it just happened, I will tell you another day’_ to avoid further questioning.

She’d tried to talk with Gendry about that, of course she had. But, although it sounds strange considering they live together, the opportunity hasn’t been given. 

Just after he’d agreed to follow her stupid idea to pretend they were engaged, he had excused himself to go to bed, completely forgetting the movie that was just beginning on the T.V., leaving her alone with her own thoughts. _‘I have to meet a client at the studio very early in the morning,’_ he had said, before standing up from the floor in front of her and walking to his room, closing his door behind him. 

The next morning, when she walked out of her room already dressed to go to the gym and thinking what to cook them for breakfast, she noticed that Nymeria was already sleeping next to the couch, but he was nowhere to be seen. There was a note attached with a magnet to the fridge, of course, where he explained that he had to run for his meeting but had already walked Nym and made coffee, so she didn’t have to bother about that. And, she believed him, because he had already told her about his meeting, but that night he arrived so late she was already in her bed when she felt him enter his own room, and it kept happening every day for the next seven days. Even on Sunday, when he wasn’t supposed to go to his studio.

“He’s mad at me, isn’t he?” she told Hot Pie, who sat across from her at the booth after leaving a cup of coffee and her favorite biscuits on the table. She hid her face behind her hands. “He surely only accepted because he felt obligated, and is now regretting it.”

She had told the whole truth to their friend, of course, because if there was someone who would call their bullshit it was him, who knew them more than anyone, and who would have shared with them enough time to notice if something had changed in their relationship status.

Hot Pie laughed.

“No, he isn’t,” he said, shrugging. “He couldn’t be mad at you for longer than five minutes. I have taken the time,” he added, stealing one of her biscuits. She didn’t care he did that, though. There were more important things in her mind at the moment, and he could refill the plate later. It was his restaurant, after all. 

“Well, maybe this was too much for him,” she grunted, and her friend took his hands to her wrists so she would stop covering her face and look at him. 

“Or, maybe he’s actually very busy,” he contradicted her, raising his eyebrows to silence her when she was about to protest. “He hadn’t come here either or called me for the whole week, and I didn’t ask him to pretend to be my fiancé.” 

She would have laughed if she wasn’t feeling so frustrated. 

“So, what should I do? My parents will be coming home on Sunday,” she asked her friend, finally taking a biscuit and giving it a bite. “We are not ready, they are going to eat us alive. My mom is really intuitive.” 

He thought about it for a couple of seconds.

“Wait for him tonight,” he said like it was the easiest thing. She had tried to do that many times, but those days he would say he was tired and go to bed before she could speak anything else. She was going to tell his friend just that, but he stopped her. “If he tries to avoid you, like the stubborn bull we both know he is, just kick his stupid ass and make him hear you. If there’s anyone in the world who can do that without terrible consequences it would be you.” He took another biscuit and then went to the kitchen when someone called for him.

Arya sighed, and looked down at her cup, trying to think what to do. She didn’t want to lose her best friend, and if she was doing this whole _pretending to be engaged_ , she would find a way to stop it. 

She needed him, more than she’d ever admit to anyone. He was the most important person in her life, besides her family, he was the only one she trusted enough to let her walls fall down, like when her little brother had the accident that left him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, or when her father had a heart attack. The first thing happened in Winterfell, so he only got to keep calling to check if she needed anything, even if he was thousands of miles away. But, the second one happened in one of his father’s business trip to King’s Landing not much later after she started studying at KLU, and he had been there holding her the whole time until they knew Ned Stark would survive, and then helped her and Sansa with everything so they wouldn’t have to worry for anything that wasn’t their father and his recovery. 

He was her best friend.

But, he was also her _soulmate,_ and she truly _loved_ him.

Unlike Sansa, she didn’t use to believe in such things. For her, things like soulmates and romantic love only existed in fairy tales and those romance novels her sister was always reading and fangirling about. But then Gendry happened, and her whole belief scheme shattered like glass. 

She may accept that she had a _crush_ on him when they were younger. He, with his black hair and bright blue eyes, his sharp jaw, his shoulders too broad for his age, and those muscles that showed through his sweaty white shirt while playing football with her and his brothers during those vacations in Storm’s End. How could she not? But, he would never like her like _that_. How could he when there were girls like her sister and Margaery Tyrell that looked like goddesses without even putting in much effort. 

It wasn’t until her time in Essos that she felt good in her own skin, that she accepted that she might not be like a supermodel, but she was a different kind of beautiful, her own kind. That’s what Lady Crane, the performer at the bar where she used to work at in Braavos, always told her. And, even the owner of the bar, who was not very used to being very talkative and kind, agreed with the woman. 

But soon, since she got back to Westeros and they re-connected, there were two things she was completely sure about: first, that what she felt for him wasn’t just a stupid _crush_ , that her feelings were much stronger than that. And, second, that even if she wasn’t Arya Underfoot anymore he only saw her as his best friend. So, she decided to accept her fate, push those feelings deep inside her and never let him know about them because she didn’t want to lose him.

And now she might do that because she couldn’t just tell her mother that she and her best friend were living together, in a totally platonic kind of relationship, because no matter how old she is she still becomes the insecure child she once was when she speaks with her mother and feels her judgment towards her brewing. 

No, she’s got to fix this.

Not long after, she left her friend’s restaurant with one resolution in her mind: she was going to talk with him that night.

“Hey, girl!” 

She was greeted by her dog as soon as she opened the door to her apartment, swinging her tail, and asking for pets with overwhelming enthusiasm. 

It was around seven thirty, two hours later than usual (she had to stay to finish a group work that she and her classmates had to present to Professor Forel), so she was worried that Nymeria would have made a mess in retribution for not having her walk at her regular time. But, everything was fine. There was no bitten furniture or objects thrown to the floor, and there was a delicious smell coming from the kitchen.

“Gen?” she asked, tentatively, while walking towards where that delicious scent was coming. And he was there, in front of the stove and with his back to her, his gaze focused on his task.

“Hey!” he said as a greeting, still not looking at her. “How’s your day?” he moved to taste some sauce he was making in the smallest pot and smiled like he was happy with the result. She let her backpack on the aisle and sat in one of the benches. 

“Too long,” she replied, staring at him as he moved around. “Did you walk Nym?” she asked, and he nodded.

“The girl was eager to go as soon as I came in through the door,” Gendry chuckled, and put something in the fridge. “Almost tackled me,” he walked back to stand in front of the stove and continued working.

She looked at him for a while, thinking how to ask him about him avoiding her last week without sounding like she was accusing him. 

“So…” she started. “I thought you would be late today as well,” she tried to speak casually like she wasn’t calling upon him. 

He turned his face to look at her, giving her an apologetic smile, and she felt her stomach do that thing it does every time he looked way too good for his own sake. 

Until that moment, she hadn’t noticed that he must have taken a shower when he arrived home. His hair was damp and hung about his face, some strands stuck to his forehead, and some drops falling from them. How she wished she could run her hand through it. He was wearing fresh clean clothes: a pair of jeans, a grey t-shirt and an open flannel shirt over top, and she couldn’t stop the thought that he seemed to have had put real care in his appearance that night. 

And again, she was feeling like the twelve years old girl who had a crush on her best friend and couldn’t help staring at him while he walked around shirtless. The image of his muscular fifteen years old self, covered with sweat will be an image that will haunt her forever, it did for many months in her sleep, and the thing is she knows for a fact his body’s even much better now. 

She would have to remind herself to close her fucking mouth and control her hormones to avoid jumping on him every time she had woken to find him at the kitchen wearing only his sweatpants and holding a cup of coffee in his hands.

“Hmm?” he asked, turning off one of the stoves. “Yeah, sorry about that. I’ve been caught up working on something at the forge,” he shrugged, and his attention went back to finish their dinner. 

“What were you working on?” she asked. Gendry always showed her pictures of his latest creations when he had finished them, asking her for her opinion, like it was a really important thing for him to know it.

He shrugged.

“I’ll show you later,” he promised.

She stayed in silence, just looking at him while he moved around the kitchen, serving and putting the plates on the isle. Nymeria laid her snout on her lap eager for pets, and she obliged, waiting for him to speak again.

“So,” he started to say, sitting in front of her. “Your parents are coming on Sunday, right?” he asked, before starting to eat his pasta.

Pasta was like Gendry’s _specialty_ , what he made when she wasn’t around to make something else, or when he wanted to indulge her with his culinary abilities. Because, even if it was like a normal thing to cook, something you make when you are hungry and don’t have much time to make something more elaborate, his pasta was like the best she had ever had. A great achievement for a man who, until moving in with her, fed on eggs, sandwiches, fast food, and whatever Hot Pie sent him from the restaurant.

“Yep,” Arya said, giving Nym a soft pat on her head to tell her it was enough, before starting eating. “Do you still want to do it?” 

“I told you I was,” he shrugged. 

“Yeah, I know. It’s just–” she sighed, trying to find her words. “I thought you were avoiding me because you didn’t want to do it anymore.”

Gendry frowned.

“I wasn’t avoiding you,” he said, and she glanced at him, the word ‘ _really?_ ’ in her eyes. He chuckled, raising his hands in surrender. “I wasn’t, I swear.”

“Then why–?”

“I told you, I was working on something.”

He continued eating, and she decided to stop questioning him in the matter. 

For now.

“So, if they are coming on Sunday, we should be making up our story, shouldn’t we?” he asked, and she just nodded, because her mouth was full. “Ok, they know how we met and that we have been friends since then, so we take it from there. You’ve been living here for how long? Almost three years, right?” She nodded again, and then took a sip of her drink. “That gives us a three years-worth love story,” he jokingly gave her one of those devilish seductive grins she loved and hated so much at the same time because of the way they made her feel, and then started laughing when she threw a napkin ball in his direction and it hit his face. 

“Sansa moved to The Vale a year ago,” she told him. “It would be easy for her to know we are lying if we say we started dating before that.”

She had been avoiding her sister’s calls the whole week.

“Yeah, but–” he did that thing with his brows that he does when he’s thinking too hard, and she had to bite her lips to avoid laughing. “We can say we were keeping it secret because we didn’t want to bring attention to us after what happened with her and Joffrey, as he’s my half-brother,” he concluded, making a disgusted grimace after saying the last words.

For a whole minute, she stayed there, mouth agape looking at him.

“What?”

“Your levels of stupidity have decreased considerably over the years,” she replied, and he threw the napkin back at her. She feigned a defensive pose and took the ball before Nymeria could steal it. “No, but seriously, that was quite smart,” she smiled. 

“Thanks for the praise,” the corner of Gendry's lips rose in a smug smile.

“Don’t get used to it,” childishly she stuck out her tongue, and he laughed. “So, we could have had a normal friendship for like, eight months? Is that long?” He shrugged in response. “Then… wasn’t that April that we went to The Brotherhood concert?” she asked, and he seemed to catch up.

“It was only the two of us there, out of town. So, it would have been the perfect occasion for us to… well, confess our feelings for each other?” Again, that smug smile appeared. “We have to keep our story as attached to reality as possible, so they can't find blind spots. Let’s pick a song, _My Feather Bed?_ We can say I started whispering the lyrics to your ear during the performance.” 

She felt a shiver run through her bones and a heated stir in her lower belly imagining him doing just that. His warm breath against her ear, his hands gripping her hips from behind, His– ‘ _Fuck! focus Arya_!’ She tried to erase the image from her head, but it was hard, really hard. How was she going to be able to pretend to be a couple, if she couldn’t keep her mind from making such images? She gulped.

“Yeah, I mean–” she cleared her throat. “It would have worked as a trigger, I guess. Then I think we can say we kissed after the song finished, and then we just… you know, started dating and stuff,” she tried to downplay it, when she could only picture how perfect it would have been to have him confessing he had feelings for her after some months of her living in King’s Landing, and then being in a relationship with him since then.

He looked to be taken aback for a couple of seconds, but then shrugged. 

“Yeah, I guess so,” he drank from his glass. 

She felt more confident.

“Well, then… about the engagement,” she saw her ring-less hand. She must go the next day to some second-hand stores or flea markets to look for a ring. “How did you ask?”

He thought about it for a while.

“It happened here, on your couch,” he replied, waiting for her silent approval to continue. “And you were the one to ask the question.”

She almost choked.

“What?!” 

He burst into laughter.

“As I said, we should keep it as close to reality as possible,” he shrugged. “And, well… If I recall correctly, you were the one who asked me to be your betrothed a week ago on that very couch.” He pointed towards their living room, and the piece of furniture at issue, as making a remark. 

“I know, but…” she bit her lower lip. “My mom is going to murder me. I can hear her voice saying _‘ladies don’t ask their boyfriends to marry them!’_ Oh gosh… Ok, we can say that,” she chuckled, shaking her head. “But, as I want her to like you, let’s say that you already had the ring and was waiting for the right moment to make the question, ok?” she lifted her eyebrow, and he nodded.

“Speaking about the ring–”

“Don’t worry about that,” she cut him. “I will look for one tomorrow.”

“That’s not necessary,” he replied, and she was about to argue that they really needed a ring or her parents would never believe them but then he put a small jewelry box from his pants. 

She looked at it, paralyzed, not able to reach her hand to touch the velvet box.

“Gen-dry, I–” she stammered. “You shouldn’t–”

“Like hell I shouldn’t!” he laughed. “You’re now my fiancée, and the least I can do is give you a freakin ring to wear.”

She finally touched the box, her hand slightly trembling when her fingers stroked the soft surface, but she was still afraid of opening it.

“You didn’t have to spend your money on this matter,” she sighed, looking up at him. “I’m sure I could have found something cheap in the market”. 

He rolled his eyes.

“It’s okay, I didn’t spend a dime in that ring,” he said, and she frowned in confusion. “I made it myself in the forge, okay? Now, open the damn thing, because I need to know if it fits or not so I can fix it tomorrow”. 

His laugh made her come out from her stupor.

“You made it?”

“Positive.”

“That’s why you were arriving so late all these days?” She was feeling guilty for thinking he was avoiding her when in reality he was spending time in the forge making a ring for her. She felt so stupid.

“Yes,” he put their plates aside. “And, I had a lot of pieces to finish this week too, so I had to take extra time if I wanted to have this done before your parents’ arrival,” he shrugged again. “Now, open it,” he requested, and so she did.

And her jaw dropped.

Inside, there was a very detailed branch-shaped band that held a single uncut gem that shone when the light touched it, making her let out a soft moan. It was so detailed and so beautiful that for a moment she just stayed there, looking at it like she was about to cry, feeling her eyes starting to burn. But no, she couldn’t, because this wasn’t real, it was just pretending. 

“I–” she gulped. “It’s beautiful.”

 _It’s not a real engagement, Arya. It’s not true,_ she had to remind herself.

“You really are an artist Gen,” she said, but that wasn’t news. 

He’s an amazing blacksmith, every one of his pieces was outstanding, and she would never miss the opportunity to let him know just that. She loved everything he made, and if there was something that made her sad at that moment, was that their engagement wasn’t real, so at some point, she would have to give the ring back.

He seemed to release the air he was holding in his lungs.

“Thanks,” he said, and then stood and took their plates, putting them inside the dishwasher, while she put the ring on her finger. It fit perfectly like he knew exactly her size when not even she knew what it was. She looked at the rock, it was amazing, and she loved that it was uncut. “What is it?” she asked, and he smiled.

“A diamond,” he said, and for the second time, she almost choked.

“You said you didn’t spend money on it!” 

He laughed.

“I didn’t, I swear,” he said, and she didn’t believe him. He sighed. “The metal of the band is made of leftovers from the sculpture I’m making for the Tyrells, and the diamond… I already had it.”

Arya decided not to ask where from, considering it would be rude.

“Ok, so… we are officially engaged,” she said, showing him the ring in her finger, a mischievous smile on her face. “Now what?”

He came back in front of the isle, resting his elbows on the surface. 

“No idea, I have zero experience on the matter,” he said, and she chuckled.

“Me neither,” she replied, and they both started laughing like they had lost their minds.

 _Maybe they had_.

“How about PDA?” Gendry asked suddenly, taking her by surprise. “I mean,” he said, after the full minute she spent unsuccessfully trying to make her brain work again to reply, and then cleared his throat. She could notice his ears turning pink. “How much should we… you know, be affectionate in front of your parents?” he asked, looking embarrassed.

She bit her lip.

“Are you suggesting making a list of rules like those in the movies?” she teased him, trying to hide her own jittering with her sense of humor. “What’s the first one? ‘ _no kissing’?_ Should I go fetch a pen and a piece of paper? Are we going to sign it like a contract?”

He rolled his eyes, but his ears were as red as her siblings’ hair at the moment.

“Shut up,” he said and looked away for a moment. “I just- I know we could act just as we usually do, and that would be fine, I guess. But, they won’t believe it if we’re, you know, so platonic… we need to be affectionate. I don’t mean it like making rules or stuff like that, just- how touchy we can be so it’s not uncomfortable? Would we be kissing? Should we have pet names for each other?” he seemed embarrassed. 

She felt herself trembling as she thought about kissing him.

“I guess we can go on with the flow and do what we feel like doing at the moment,” she suggested. “And, if the other feels uncomfortable with that, they will communicate it so it’s never done again,” she looked at him, and he nodded. 

“Good,” he said, looking more relaxed. “And kissing?”

“I don’t see why we shouldn’t.” The idea of kissing him made her feel like her insides were on fire, but she tried to look like it was not a big deal. “I mean, we wouldn’t be fully making out in front of my parents if we were actually engaged, anyway. So, it would be what? Pecks? I don’t see any problem with doing that with you… I trust you.”

But, truth be told, she didn’t trust that much in herself.

“So, pecks are okay?” he asked, and she nodded. “Right…” she looked at her in a way that made her be thankful she was sitting, or her trembling legs would have sent her directly to the floor. 

“We could even try doing it right now,” her mouth spoke before her brain could process what she was saying, and he looked like she had punched him in the face. She could relate, to be honest. She cleared her throat. “Or not. I mean, it was just an idea so we wouldn’t have to do it for the first time being in front of them,” she shrugged, trying her best to calm her nerves, but she was internally hitting herself.

He took his hand to his very dark hair, ruffling it. 

“You might be right,” he said, and she felt like there was some fluttering in her stomach. “It would be weird doing it in front of your parents without having done it before”. He leaned over the island, and as a result, their faces were so close she could feel his breathing. “Just a peck, test it… see if it’s weird,” he said, and she nodded, feeling like she was in some kind of spell as she leaned even closer, her whole body about to burst with anticipation and need, until the sound of her phone made them jump apart.

The spell broke.

She looked down at the screen of her phone and saw her sister’s name. 

“It’s Sansa,” she said, and he nodded. 

“Take it,” he sighed. “We can do it tomorrow- I guess, there’s no rush. We still have time,” he commented, and she considered telling him that she really didn’t have to take the call, but she knew Sansa, and she would keep calling until she picked it up. “And, there’s also the discussion about pet names.”

She relaxed with this. 

“Don’t you dare!” she said, as she walked to her room to pick up the call.

“As you wish, _milady_!” he said, and she grunted before closing the door behind her, trying to forget the fact that they have almost kissed, and that they would actually kiss in the near future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to thank snapdragon76 for being my Beta, because she's amazing and is helping me a lot.
> 
> Last chapter we focused on Gendry's side of the story, this time it was Arya's turn. Next chapter will be the dinner, and there will be an unexpected guest. Who do you think it will be? 
> 
> For those wondering about the ring, [HERE](https://i.imgur.com/tRyMxHe.jpg) is a picture of it. 
> 
> Thank you for all the comments in the first chapter, I really love to read what you think about this story.


	3. The Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If you don’t feel comfortable, we can avoid the kissing part,” he told her, mimicking her actions and looking down at his own feet.  
> He knew she had said she didn’t mind them kissing, that it wouldn’t be a big deal, but maybe it was because she thought he would mind if they didn’t, or because she wanted to look as if she was unflappable.  
> “No!” she suddenly said or being more accurate, screamed. He couldn’t help looking up at her face. “I mean–” she continued, after clearing her throat. “That wasn’t what I meant,” she continued.  
> Gendry nodded.  
> “What did you mean, then?”

Gendry laid on his back, looking at the ceiling of his room for what felt like an hour, completely unable to fall asleep. What was he thinking? Was he thinking _at all_? He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t just be there and _pretend_ to be _pretending_ to be in love with her when he actually was just that. 

He was in love with her. 

But, she wasn’t in love with him, and that was the thing, he couldn’t let his feelings towards her show, knowing she would just consider it a part of a scheme to fool her parents, a game, and still think about him as her friend. 

He rolled in the bed with a groan, tugging the blankets away, feeling restless and kind of moody. How could he sleep, when everything he could do was thinking about her? When everything he wanted to do was to rush to the door of her room and knock to tell her everything he had been trying to keep for himself the last couple (or even more) of years? It was stupid of him, he knew that, but he was starting to think _stupid_ was his middle name, actually.

He looked at the time on his phone. 

Would she be sleeping, or still awake? Last thing he knew she was walking into her bedroom with her phone against her ear, talking with her sister and leaving him in the kitchen as he tried to put himself together. They had _almost_ kissed, they would be kissing in the near future. And, he was sure it wouldn’t mean much for her whilst, for him, it would mean the entire world.

Deciding that, definitely, he wouldn’t be falling asleep anytime soon, he left the bed and went to open the door of his bedroom, thinking about going to the kitchen to get some warm milk to drink.

And, there she was, in front of his door.

“Arya–” he breathed softly, and her eyes widened as if she had been caught red-handed.

“I’m sorry, I–” she stopped herself, nervously looking away. “I just finished speaking with my sister, and… I thought it wasn’t too late for us to continue our talk. I mean, it’s not THAT late. But, when I came to your door I noticed that your light was off, so I was going back to my room– I didn’t want to bother you.”

He looked down at her, feeling his insides turn.

She had changed her clothes to an oversized shirt he recognized very well. It was his. Was she wearing anything under it? Images that shouldn’t be there invaded his mind, and he had to look away and hold himself to the frame of his door. He was thankful it was dark because he could feel his face getting hotter. 

“You don’t--” he sounded like a teenager who was going through puberty, so he cleared his throat before speaking again. “You would never bother,” he sighed. “I couldn’t sleep, so I was heading to the kitchen.”

She smiled.

“What’s keeping you awake?” she teased, and he shrugged.

He decided to play it cool.

“You know, this whole choosing pet names thing is hard.” A satisfied grin appeared on his lips when he noticed her eye-roll. “I don’t know if I should call you sweetheart or princess… though, after this afternoon milady sounds promising.”

If looks could kill.

“You know what? I’m going to sleep,” she said, turning around to walk back to her room, but he stopped her by grabbing her arm. 

“I was joking,” he said and noticed how she slowly took a breath, before looking back at him, and leaning her back to the wall next to the doorway of her room. He smiled. “How’s Sansa?” he asked because he suddenly remembered that he hadn’t asked her about her call with her sister.

“She’s good,” she said, absently playing with the ring in her finger. He was surprised she hadn’t taken off yet. “But, she just broke up with this guy she was dating,” she told him, and he nodded, still not knowing what else to say. “And, she asked me about our engagement,” she said, with a weird tone in her voice that made him raise one of his eyebrows. 

“She did?” he asked, and she chuckled.

“Of course, she did.” She looked in his eyes. “I told her the story that we made out… about the concert, and about why we never told anyone, and she was so sad about us having to keep our relationship secret on her behalf I almost told her the truth.”

He sighed.

“But, you didn’t?” Gendry asked, and she shook her head. “Why?” 

“Because–” she bit her lower lip. “Because, then she started talking about how she always thought we were _meant to be_ , and how she always suspected there was something _more_ between us, and I just couldn’t…” a soft smile appeared on her lips. “It will sound really mean, but it felt so good to know something she doesn’t,” she confessed, and he couldn’t help laughing.

“Of course, you did,” he said, shaking his head.

Then, they stayed in silence for what felt like an eternity, before any of them dared to say a word.

“I think–”

“We can–”

They started speaking at the same time and then laughed.

With a gesture, Gendry told her to speak first.

She sighed.

“I haven’t kissed anyone much,” Arya started. He didn’t know what he was expecting her to say, but, he was sure as hell it wasn’t that. “I mean, I’ve dated a couple of guys, but I’ve never had a real relationship,” she seemed ashamed about that. “And, it’s not like I’ve done much with them, in that case.”

He noticed that she was now looking at her feet.

_Oh…_

_OH._

“If you don’t feel comfortable, we can avoid the kissing part,” he told her, mimicking her actions and looking down at his own feet. 

He knew she had said she didn’t mind them kissing, that it wouldn’t be a big deal, but maybe it was because she thought he would mind if they didn’t, or because she wanted to look as if she was unflappable.

“No!” she suddenly said or being more accurate, screamed. He couldn’t help looking up at her face. “I mean–” she continued, after clearing her throat. “That wasn’t what I meant,” she continued. 

Gendry nodded.

“What did you mean, then?” he asked, cautiously. 

Arya bit her lower lip, nervously.

He wished to be the one biting it. 

_‘For fucks sake, stop acting like a heated teenager!’_ He mentally scolded himself, as he forced his sight to go from her lips to her beautiful gray eyes.

“I meant it as…” she moved, uncomfortably. “I don’t have much experience in kissing and relationships, and doing all those things that we are expected to do in front of my parents for them to believe that we are in a relationship.” 

Now, he understood.

“How many kisses have you had?” he couldn’t help asking. 

“I–” she frowned. “I don’t really know.”

He chuckled. 

“Ok, better question: how many people have you kissed?” he asked, and she seemed to find this question much easier.

“Three,” she said, without hesitation. “First, it was Mycah”.

“But, Mycah is gay,” he interjected. 

He knew her friend from her childhood. Well, not actually, as he has never met him in person. He has never been in her homeland to do so. But, he knew enough about the guy from Arya’s childhood stories, and her most recent updates after chatting with her friend via WhatsApp, to know he was indisputably gay. He was even planning to get married with his boyfriend in Dorne, as there the laws allowing same-sex marriage. Arya had told him she was going to be maid of honor.

“He is,” she nodded. “But, we didn’t know it back then! And, we both wanted to know how it felt to kiss, so–”

Gendry nodded, he could understand that. His first kiss was because of the same reasons, with one of his childhood neighbors. Though… he put the memory aside, it was not time to think about himself. 

He was now listening to her.

She suddenly chuckled.

“It was terrible,” she said, sincerely. “So, I didn’t try kissing anyone until–” she bit her lip like she wasn’t sure she should say who she had kissed next. She sighed. “Then, I went with Ned Dayne to the school dance, and well–”

He saw red.

“You’re kidding me, right?” he said, and she shook her head without looking up at him.

He _DESPISED_ Ned Dayne.

The guy was one of Arya’s classmates in Winterfell High. A golden boy. He was very polite, wealthy, charming, and excessively friendly. Everything that _he_ wasn’t. He met him only because Ned’s family was, just like the Starks, very close to his father. 

He remembers the day it happened. 

He had been grumpy the whole day because he had to go to another of his father’s parties. His mother was already sick, so he only wanted to stay at home and take care of her. But, then, he knew that Arya was in King’s Landing and was going to attend, and suddenly he thought he would enjoy the night. 

But, he didn’t. 

Dayne spent the whole time glued to them, talking about himself and how they (he and Arya) spent all their time together in school. There, another thing that Ned Dayne was and that he wasn’t, or more specifically, what he had and Gendry didn’t: he got to spend a lot of time with his best friend, while he only had those days when she traveled to King’s Landing with her father and their calls.

“I’m not,” she said, and then laughed. He never told her how much he hated the guy. “Mom insisted him to take me to the dance, and so he did. And, we kissed when he took me back home, and then we went around for some weeks or so. I mean, it was… logical? It was what was expected of us,” she shrugged. 

Gendry wanted to hit something. Ned Dayne’s face, preferably. 

How’s it that he didn’t know that she had dated him?

“Then, I graduated and decided that I wanted to go to Braavos, and I just couldn’t see myself actually being in a long-term relationship with him. He was… boring?” Gendry chuckled. “Don’t laugh, I’m serious!” she complained, and he raised his hand in surrender. “He’s really nice, an amazing and respectful guy, who just wasn't for me,” she looked up at him. “Does it make sense?” 

He nodded and waited for her to continue her story.

He thought then she would tell him about her Braavosi boyfriend, the one who Hot Pie told him looked really old, but she started talking about a girl she had met and that she had kissed for mere curiosity, but who was freaking out of her mind, to the point that she had to get a restriction order.

“What?” she asked, possibly noticing his confusion.

He was an open book for her.

“Hot Pie told me you had a boyfriend in Braavos,” he confessed, feeling distressed, and noticed that she didn’t understand what he was talking about. “You posted a picture with a dude on your Instagram, and Hot Pie said that it might be your boyfriend,” he further explained, and then she started to do something that made him feel much more confused: she laughed.

“Oh, dear God, no!” she shook her head. “That was Jaqen,” she continued, amid laughter. “He was my boss there… he’s like, I don’t know, forty?” she snorted in a very not much lady-like way, taking her hands to her face to cover it. “He was so stiff and serious I just had to bother him into accepting to appear in a picture, and allow me to post it on my Instagram before I flew back home.”

He felt like, suddenly, some weight was lifted from his shoulders.

“And, here?” Gendry had to ask.

“No time, I guess” she shrugged. “And, no one as good as–” she drastically stopped and bit her lip. “As good as to make me consider doing it, you know?” 

Gendry shrugged. 

Sometimes, when he was out with the boys, he might have _used_ other girls to try to take _her_ out of his mind. It never worked, though. And it made him feel like the worst human being on planet earth, considering that kissing wasn’t the only thing they did, so he stopped doing it after a while.

Three girls, no more. 

He didn't want anyone to compare him to his late father.

“… and, what if I’m not good?” she was saying, and he looked at her confused.

“What?” 

“I don’t know if I’m good at kissing, I think I’m not because really all my past kisses were really bad… please, don’t tell poor Ned, it’s just that it was so boring with him… and, I’m afraid it will be much worse for you to have to pretend to be my fiancé. I mean, having to kiss me when I’m a disaster, and my parents will notice I can’t do it right, or that you are uncomfortable and so–”

She didn’t get to finish, as his lips captured hers.

He didn’t even notice when he had walked towards her, much less when he had decided to kiss her. Only, that she continued ranting about how badly she thought about herself, and he just wanted her to shut the fuck up, because he hated when she did that. And hated her sister (not much like before, but still) and that friend of hers for making her feel like she wasn’t good enough all those years.

It wasn’t a passionate kiss, just his lips softly brushing hers, as he tenderly held her face between his hands, but it felt like a million fireworks exploding inside his chest.

How long he had wished to do something like that.

He pulled away, just a smidge, so he could look at her face. Her eyes were closed, her cheeks were soft pink, and her lips merely parted… God! They screamed to be kissed again. He wanted to kiss her again.

“You’re not a disaster,” he said, because he had to say something.

She opened her eyes.

“How do you know?” she asked, her voice a soft whisper. “You kissed me, but I didn’t get to kiss you back,”

He felt his heart speeding up.

“I just know,” he said, as he didn’t know what else to say.

And, they were kissing again.

Gendry didn’t know if he had kissed her or if she had kissed him. They just did. This time it was longer, more passionate, as this time she was a very active partaker. Her hands went to the nape of his neck, pulling him to her height, and he had to support his hands against the wall behind her head because he wasn’t sure if he could touch her without losing control. It was Arya, his best friend, and they were supposed to be doing this to make sure they would feel comfortable kissing each other.

Apparently, way too much.

He pulled away, his brain still in short circuit.

“It was–” 

She nodded, her eyes still closed.

“Yeah,” it’s all she said, and he put his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants because if not, he would put them on her. 

“You’re a good kisser,” she moistened her lips, and he felt like he was about to break apart as he followed the path of her tongue. 

“Thanks–” _What the fuck happened to his voice?_ He cleared it. “You too...”

They looked at each other for a while, no words said felt like enough, and then… out of nowhere, she started laughing. He looked at her, confused, but then started laughing as well. Why? He didn’t freakin’ know.

“This should have been my first kiss,” she said after her laughter stopped.

He didn’t disagree.

But, he was sure her reasons were different to his.

“Well,” he took a step back for the sake of his own sanity. “Now we know we have nothing to worry about,” she frowned, confused. “Your parents will believe us.”

He loved the sound of his forge. 

The fire cracking, the metal singing every time he hit it with his hammer, the hiss of the water when he would plunge the hot metal in it. It calmed him down, made him feel transported to a different place, to a different reality, where anything that would trouble his mind just disappeared. That day, though, that was not the case.

When he woke up that morning, it was to the sound of Nymeria scratching his door, demanding his attention, and taking him out from the amazing dream he was having and that he could never tell to anyone, much less his best friend, as she was prominent. He thought those kinds of dreams. 

He just wanted to close his eyes again and go back to her touching him in the way she was doing in his dream. But, instead, he had sat up, and then looked down at the _hard_ evidence of the images his unconscious-self had put in his head. 

For fucks sake, what was him? A freakin’ teenager? 

He let his body collapse back to the bed with a groan, covering his face with his hands, and trying to think of something that _wasn’t_ her, so his body would stop betraying him. How could he face her that morning after the events of the night? After that kiss that felt like heaven and hell at the same time? He couldn’t, but… he had to.

They had shared a kiss in the dark hallway between their rooms.

She had told him she wished it had been her very first kiss, and he didn’t freakin’ know what he had to take from that.

Was she telling him that because her other kisses had been so bad that his was at least enjoyable, or because there was something else? Because she felt the same electricity running through her veins as he did? No, of course not. It had to be the first option. 

Their morning routine went as nothing had happened the night before. He walked Nym and came back home to find her making breakfast, and for some reason, he couldn’t help smiling seeing move her body at the rhythm of the music that was playing, and then having to excuse himself to go to the toilet because his gaze went down over her body, and his body decided to betray him… again.

“What do you have to do today?” she asked, sitting in front of him as he drank his coffee. He smiled.

“I promised I would deliver the sculpture I made for the Tyrells on Monday, so I have to finish it today,” he explained, taking a seat. “But, it’s almost done, just a couple details, so I’ll do my best to be here as early as possible.” He thought they could finish getting ready for having dinner with her parents the next day. 

“It’s okay,” she said, taking a toast from his plate. “I have a lot to do as well,” she shrugged. “Have to spend the whole afternoon at the library doing some research with some of my classmates.”

Then, she surprised him when she took her gym bag and then leaned down to press a soft peck on his lips. 

“See you tonight, fiancé,” she said, turning to eye him with a mischievous smile before leaving the apartment, and he couldn’t help but stare dumbstruck at the closed door for what felt like an eternity.

_What had just happened?_

That’s what he was trying to understand when the door of his forge opened wide, and his cousin entered through it like a whirlwind. 

“How is it that I have to learn from MY FATHER that you are engaged?!” Shireen said, fuming. Well, that was new coming from his shyest relative. “Shouldn’t I know those things first? Am I not your favorite cousin?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. He laughed.

“You’re my only cousin,” he replied, and she rolled her eyes.

“I rest my case,” Shireen sat in one of the few benches he had in the room and waited for him to explain the events of his engagement. 

He made her wait, while carefully shaping an iron leaf and welding it to the sculpture of a rose bush. He knew he was bothering her, and he didn’t care.

“How did he know?” he asked then, his eyes still in his work.

“Your father was drunk at last night’s dinner with my dad and uncle Renly.” 

Gendry rolled his eyes. Nothing new, then. “My dad told me he was telling everyone that his eldest son, his pride, had finally made his dream come true joining both families, the Baratheons and Starks. Something that, according to him, was overdue since Lyanna Stark rejected his marriage proposal.” 

Gendry grunted. Was that all it took to make his father proud of him? Getting engaged with one of his best friend’s daughters? He took a deep breath and focused back on his work.

“I mean, Joffrey dated a Stark,” He said, starting to shape another leaf.

“Yeah, and it ended with Sansa putting a restriction order against him,” she said, with a shrug. “Right now, uncle Robert considers you his prodigal son, the one who should have grown with him. And, after recent events, wishes that Joffrey didn’t share his blood.”

“Really? What did he do now?” Gendry tried not to think how it would have if his father would have married his mom, and he would have grown up _truly_ being the son of Robert Baratheon, the one he was proud about, not the one he only brought to some events to make people believe that he cared for all his children, regardless of their origin. 

“OK, but don’t tell anyone because my father wants to keep it secret.”

Stannis Baratheon was in charge of the legal issues of the family business, so he logically had to take care of everything his brothers and children did. “Joffrey is in rehab… he had an overdose like a month ago, almost died. Dad had to pay a lot of money so it didn’t end up in the press.” 

“No fucking way!” 

He knew his half-brother was stupid, but this surpassed everything he had done before.

“So, yeah. Enjoy your new _favorite son_ status,” Shireen shrugged. “Dad told me that Uncle Robert wants to make a party or something like that to celebrate your engagement to Arya, hasn’t he called you?” she asked, and Gendry sighed. 

“I’ve been hanging up his calls,” he admitted, and his cousin laughed.

 _Well, fuck._ He had to talk with Arya about the freakin party his father wants to make in their honor as soon as he gets home. 

Then they started talking about his work, the sculpture he is making for the Tyrells and that his uncle’s husband had requested as a present for their grandmother’s birthday from her grandchildren. It looked like a rose bush, taller than himself, that Loras and his siblings thought would look beautiful in Olenna Tyrell’s famous garden. 

He is still amazed that people seem to like his work.

“It’s a lie, though,” he suddenly said, not wanting to lie to his cousin, and knowing she wouldn’t tell anyone the truth. If there’s someone in his family he would trust with his life, it would be Shireen. 

“What’s a lie?” she asked, absentmindedly going through one of the metalwork magazines he has in his study.

“That Arya and I are engaged,” he said, and she snapped her head up at him. “It’s just pretending.”

She frowned.

“Why?” Shireen asked, and he shrugged.

“Because I’m living with her, and her parents are coming to King’s Landing tomorrow to visit, and want to have dinner in her apartment,” he explained. “You know how conservative they are, they wouldn’t approve of us sharing the same roof being friends, but if they think we are going to get married…”

Suddenly, Shireen burst in laughter.

“You’re kidding, right?” she said, shaking. “Here I was, thinking you had finally put your shit together and confessed your feelings for the person you’re actually in love with, that you two had finally seen that you’re meant to be together, and it turns out that you’re just pretending to be engaged.” She continued laughing. 

“I’m not, we are not–”

She interrupted him.

“Yes, you are,” she shook her head. “Oh my Gods, you’re so fucked!”

He just stared at her, thinking about what she had said. Yes, he was crazy about Arya, that’s not big news, and it was logical that Shireen knew. She was smart and knew him much more than any other person (except for Arya). If there was someone able to figure out his feelings for his best friend, it was her. But, that he and Arya were meant to be together? No, it only happened in his wildest dreams. She didn’t feel the same way about him. 

_‘And, what about those kisses from last night?’_ his inner voice asked, as he got back to work after his cousin left the studio to go fetch some biscuits from Davos. She adored the man and his wife, and the sentiment was mutual. _‘And the one she gave you this morning?’_ it added, and he shook his head.

Last night, it had been him who started it… and, had it not been part of the plan to do it? They needed to be able to kiss in front of her parents or they wouldn’t believe them. And, what about that morning? Well, they would have to make sure it didn’t seem awkward when they did it in front of the Starks, wouldn’t they? So, it was very logical for them to keep doing it until it felt natural. Besides, Arya’s favorite thing to do was to startle him, and now she had discovered a new way to do it. He shouldn’t allow himself to think that there was something else than friendly banter in his best friend’s actions, it would turn out in confusion if he did. 

“My parents asked me if I could add another plate on the table,” she said, sitting next to him on their couch, a bowl of popcorn in between her hands. 

He smiled and stole a handful, still looking at the TV screen. 

“Who’s coming with them?” he asked, begging to all the entities it wasn’t his father. 

“Rick,” she replied, and he let out the air he didn’t know he was holding. “Apparently, his swimming team is going to compete against King’s Landing High this week, so he decided to fly ahead with our parents,” she shrugged.

He liked Rickon and really considered it interesting to see the youngest Stark again, as Arya’s brother had been merely a child the last time they had met and many things might have changed. But, it meant that they would have another person to lie to, another pair of eyes that would be looking at their every move to judge if they were actually engaged.

“He’s very smart,” Arya seemed to be reading his mind.

He sighed.

“We’ll have to be more careful,” he replied, looking away from the screen to focus on her. “Should we go over our history again?” he asked, and she shook her head.

“It’s ok, I think we have it,” she said, moving closer to him, and his arm instinctively got wrapped around her shoulders. That closeness was not strange to them since she used to pillow him every time they watched movies on the couch. “Did you move your stuff to my room as I told you?” she asked, looking up at him, and he nodded.

They didn’t know if her parents would enter their bedrooms, but if they did, it wouldn’t be good if they found his belongings in a different room. He left some stuff in his closet, though, as they could tell that there wasn’t enough space in hers, but things like those in his nightstand and his bathroom were now in Arya’s. 

“Good,” she replied, putting her head back on his chest. 

He looked back at the TV, without really paying attention to what was happening in the movie, as her hand started to trace circles on his leg. Again, nothing new, she used to do that when they watched movies together, but now it brought very vivid images of them kissing from the night before. 

“I–” he started saying, his heart racing. “Shireen told me that Robert knows about our engagement.”

She nodded, her eyes not leaving the screen.

“We were expecting that, weren’t we?” she asked, and he chuckled. 

“Yeah, we were,” As if Ned Stark wouldn’t tell his best friend that their children were engaged. “But, she also told me that my father wants to make some party to celebrate it,” he added and noticed the grimace on her face. 

“Well, fuck,” she said, and started laughing. “It got out of hand, didn’t it?” she said, and he couldn’t help laugh as well.

“Yeah, it did,” he took more popcorn, and sighed. “I also told Shireen the truth, she won’t tell anyone,” he quickly added, because she knew how much he trusted his cousin. She nodded. 

“Of course, you did,” she said, and looked up at him. “Don’t worry, I trust her as well,” she left a light kiss on his chin, and he looked down, surprised. 

“And, it’s good to have someone in your family to help us. I mean, I would tell any of my siblings, but Rob and Sansa would be scandalized, Jon would get insufferable, Bran would give us a lecture about how this is a bad idea –not that I think it is, he’s just that smart-ass –and Rickon, ugh… he would use it to blackmail us, so I prefer we don’t.”

He didn’t say a word. 

“What?” she asked, as he continued staring.

“You kissed me,” he said, and she rolled her eyes.

“Well, duh!” she laughed. “We have to keep doing it so it’s not uncomfortable when we’re in front of my parents,” she said, as a fact, and then poked his ribs. “Why? Does it make you uncomfortable?” she added, in a teasing voice that made him feel his body tremble. Of course, she wouldn’t notice how her kisses would make him feel, she never did.

“Nope,” Gendry said, and a devilish smile appeared on her lips. 

“You sure?” she kissed his jaw again, and he groaned. 

“I’m very sure,” he replied, his hands suddenly wanting to grab her hips and pull her to his lap so he could kiss her properly.

“Good,” she said, and then she was standing, making him miss the heat of her body against his. “It’s late, so I better go to sleep,” she leaned down as she had done that morning, and stole another peck from his lips. “Good night!” she said, as she walked to her room, and he was left there looking at the black screen thinking how screwed he was… this pretending to be engaged to Arya would be the death of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is crazy.
> 
> I know it's been a while since I last updated, but I've been kind of busy at work... I work in an university, and we've been doing the process to change classes to online because of the Covid-19 situation. So, yeah. This chapter is very overdue, and I'm sorry about that. Hope it's good enough you can forgive me. 
> 
> Thanks again to Snapdragon76 for being my Beta.


	4. The Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She looked back at herself in the mirror and then took a deep breath.  
> “My parents are on their way, so they might be here any time,” she said, putting on the ring, as she had taken it off before going to take a shower. “Is everything ready?” she asked, and noticed him chuckling at the reflection.  
> “Yeah, it’s all settled,” he said.

“You’re playing with fire,” her friend told her via Skype, when she told her everything about the fake engagement, and her most recent plan about her _Gendry_ situation, as they usually called it.

She knew they shouldn’t be telling the truth to so many people, but she trusted Meera with her life, even if she lived very far away, and was dating one of her brothers. Besides, he had told his cousin, so she deserved to have someone too to whom she could talk about the whole situation, who would also keep her side of the story to herself. Because, unlike Hot Pie, Meera knew about her stupid crush –now, transformed into an in-love situation –for her best friend.

“I know, but… what else can I do?” she stared at her closed door, pretty sure that he was out there, getting ready for the day. “I know he doesn’t love me, not the way I want him to–” she bit her lip. “But, that kiss was… he has to feel something, anything! Even if it’s just physical, you know? I think he’s always seen me as that little girl with badly-chopped hair who was bullied by his brother and his friends, not as a grown woman, but that kiss showed me that I can change that, that he might be starting to feel _something_. And I want to know what it is, even if it’s just… you know. And, I can work with that, that’s what I felt for him when we were younger, wasn’t it?” she smiled.

“So, what?” Meera asked, with a frown. “Are you going to seduce him, or something like that? Remember he’s your best friend, things can end really bad.”

“I know,” she said, and then sighed. “But, there’s nothing else I can do.”

“Yes, there is,” her friend cut in. “You can tell him the truth right now.”

Arya thought about it but then shook her head.

“And, destroy our friendship when he tells me that he doesn’t feel the same? Nu-uh. Not gonna do that,” she crossed her arms. “If I do this right now, I’m going to lose him. But, if I continue with my plan, if I get him to fall in love with me, then everything is going to be fine.”

She smiled. Of course, everything would be fine, because the moment he would tell her that he wanted her she would be able to tell him she did it as well, and then they could be together… for real, not just pretend they do so her parents wouldn’t mind them living together.

Meera sighed.

“So, you’re doing this? You’re going to _seduce_ your best friend?” she asked, and Arya nodded. She knew her friend wouldn’t say any other word against it if she was sure about what she was doing. “OK. Then, good luck with that, I guess…” she laughed.

“Thanks,” Arya smiled, feeling confident.

A knock on Meera’s door made her look away, and so her friend asked her to wait a minute and disappeared for a couple of minutes from the sight of the camera, until she was back, her brother rolling next to her in his wheelchair and looking amused to see her on the screen.

“Hey, big sis,” he said, a bright teasing smile plastered on his lips.

“Hello, little bro,” she replied, noticing her friend holding a chuckle. “How’re your classes going? Already driving everyone crazy?” she asked. Her brother had this know-all attitude that, sometimes, made her wonder how her friend could be dating him.

Bran and Meera were studying at White Harbor University, living on the campus, getting a bit of that independence that her brother much needed since having that accident that didn’t allow him to walk by himself. Meera’s brother was Bran’s roommate, a really nice boy who was always there to help him in case he needed it, as he was studying physio. While his girlfriend shared her room with Wylla, who had the most awesome green hair she had ever seen and was the headmaster’s grandchild.

“Ha-ha. Not fun, sis,” he said and rolled his eyes while moving from the wheelchair to his girlfriend’s bed. “Now, how’s it that you’re engaged to Gendry and I didn’t even know that you were dating?” he asked, and Arya shrugged. They had practiced this answer a thousand times until it came naturally from their lips.

“You know, with all that happened with Sansa and He-who-must-not-be-named–” her brother laughed at the Harry Potter reference. “We didn’t want our relationship to be compared to them. You know, everybody being overprotective with me thinking Gen would be anything like his half-brother. That he would hurt me…” she noticed that Meera was standing away from the bed, occupying her hands in organizing some books, as to not let it show that she knew she was lying. “But, he would never. You know that. We were supposed to keep the engagement secret too, but mum and dad are coming today, so I had to tell them.” Meera seemed impressed at her ability to lie because the look she gave her from the other side of the room was of approval.

“Arya, I would never compare Gendry with Joffrey,” Bran said, softly.

“I know you wouldn’t,” she said, with a shrug. “But, we thought it was better not to tell anyone. Hope you’re not mad.”

Her brother laughed.

“It depends. Did you tell her?” he pointed at Meera, and even if she was tempted to say yes, and to see what was going to happen to her friend if she did so, she shook her head and noticed the relief in the other girl’s face. “Then, good. Can I see the ring?” he asked, so she lifted her hand, showing him Gendry’s work.

Since the moment Gendry gave it to her, she had only taken it off of her finger to do stuff like sleep, take a shower, or go to the gym, so no one could say they didn’t see her wearing it. Her classmates were going insane, making her talk about her engagement, and making plans about hen parties when she didn’t even have a date to give them yet, nor would she ever have one.

“It’s beautiful,” he said, with an approving nod. “He made it, right?” he asked, and Arya proudly nodded.

“Oh my God, it’s gorgeous!” Meera interjected, sitting back next to her boyfriend.

Then, the conversation was about their classes and the dinner she was making for their parents and Rickon, who… Bran gossiped at her, was dating a girl from his swimming team. But, he made her swear she won’t tell their brother that he was the one who told her, which took away all the fun.

Gendry was sitting on the couch, his attention completely focused on his laptop, when she finished her call and went outside her room. She smiled, walking to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee, and then resting her elbows on the counter as she watched him do whatever he was doing.

He typed something and then frowned like he does when he’s trying to think so hard. So, after sipping from her cup, she went and sat beside him.

“What are you trying to do?” she asked and he jumped, as he hadn’t even noticed her when she entered the room.

She laughed.

“It’s so easy to scare you,” she said, and he rolled his eyes.

“I was distracted,” Gendry said, looking away from his laptop. “I was trying to send an email to a gallery that is willing to show some of my pieces,” he pointed at the screen. “But, I really am not good at writing formal emails. Davos usually does that,” he added, and she took the device from his lap and put it on hers.

“And, why is Davos not doing this?” she asked as she read the email, and he shrugged.

“It’s Sunday, I don’t want to bother him,” Gendry said. “He told me he was going to visit one of his children today,” he added, as she started typing on his computer, paraphrasing some things he had already written.

“And, couldn’t he do this tomorrow?” Arya questioned, still focused on her task.

“The mail went to the spam folder, and today’s the deadline.”

Arya rolled her eyes.

Typical.

She checked the content of the mail and then handed the laptop back to him. “I think this will work,” she said, with a soft smile. If there was something she was good at, it was words. “You just have to attach some pictures of the pieces you want to suggest to them to display, and that’s all.”

He spent a couple of minutes reading what she had written, and smiled.

“Thanks, it’s perfect!” he said, and then hugged her with one of his arms, and pressed a kiss on her forehead. “You’re a genius,” he added, and she felt her cheeks burning. Couldn’t she control herself in front of him? Apparently not.

“Yeah, yeah… I’m a deity and you owe me your life,” she smirked, and then waited for him to finish sending his email before speaking again. “You know, I was just speaking with Bran and Meera,” she pointed at her room.

“You were?” he put his laptop at the coffee table, before making himself comfortable on the couch. “What did you tell them?”

“I told Meera the truth, but it was before Bran arrived. She won’t tell him,” she added when she noticed the scold in his eyes. “Don’t look at me like that, you told Shireen so we’re even,” she reminded him, and he frowned.

“And, what about Hot Pie?” he asked.

Arya shrugged. “He is Switzerland,” she said, and Gendry laughed.

Somehow, they had got closer while they were speaking, and now her legs were on his lap, his arm around her shoulders, and her face lying comfortably on his shoulder, as his fingers absently played with the tips of her hair. It felt so good, she thought, as they continued talking about her call with her brother and his girlfriend, before Nymeria decided that she also wanted to be part of their human pile and jumped on top of them, her snout looking for Gendry’s face, making them laugh.

“What time are your parents coming?” he asked, standing from the couch.

She missed him already.

“They told me their flight would arrive past noon, and then they would go to their hotel first,” she started to absently stroke Nym’s head. “So, I guess they will be here at sunset? Maybe later,” she looked at him as he moved around, picking up her dog’s toys, which she always left around.

“Messy miss,” he scolded at the husky, who barked in response, making her cackle.

He was nervous, she could tell that for the way he walked around the apartment like a caged beast, and the way he seemed to be mumbling again and again what seemed to be the story they have made out about their relationship, as trying not to forget any detail. How adorable. She smiled, and then looked down at her phone, to see a message her father had sent her some minutes ago, telling her they were on their way.

“Arya, do I have to we–” she looked back from the mirror, finding him at the door frame, completely paralyzed.

He looked so good she felt something inside her melt and go right to her lower belly. She didn’t know if it was because of the dark dress pants that fit in the right places, or the perfectly fitted button-up navy shirt to which he had rolled up the sleeves to the middle of his forearms, or both… most likely both, but she felt she wanted to jump on him and skip out on dinner and the rest of the universe.

“Do you have to what?” she asked when she got sure she would be able to speak.

“I–” Gendry seemed to have forgotten that he was going to ask something. “I wanted to know if I have to wear a tie?” he finally said, looking away from her.

What was so interesting in her window that he was looking so intensely at it? She looked at it and saw nothing.

“This is a family dinner,” she rolled her eyes. “So, I’m pretty sure you’re more than fine without a tie. Also, I think neither my father nor Rickon will wear one.”

She knew her parents are a bit intimidating, and that they were always looking like they just had come out from the runway. But, they wouldn’t dress up for a family reunion, although people tend to believe that they do.

He nodded and seemed to consider leaving, but his blue gaze went back at her and stayed there for what seemed like an eternity.

“You look…” he seemed to be struggling to find a word. “Very good.”

She was about to say he did too, looking instead at her own attire, feeling suddenly too self-conscious. It wasn’t usual for her to wear skirts, or dresses, not because she didn’t like them, but because they weren’t practical when you have to run around from one class to another in a university as KLU, where the campus was always full of people.

This particular skirt was fitted and long enough to be appropriate for her to wear it to have dinner with her parents, but also to display her best attribute, that was her long-toned legs. Meera was always teasing her about how she couldn’t understand how she had such long legs being so petit. She didn’t understand, either. Over said skirt, she was wearing a lace top that her sister had gifted for her last Christmas, that she hadn’t found an occasion to wear it for, and instead of flat shoes she had put on her only pair of heels, which weren’t as high as to make any relevant difference, but it was something.

“I–” Arya said, starting to feel nervous. “Thanks.”

She looked back at herself in the mirror and then took a deep breath.

“My parents are on their way, so they might be here any time,” she said, putting on the ring, as she had taken it off before going to take a shower. “Is everything ready?” she asked, and noticed him chuckling at the reflection.

“Yeah, it’s all settled,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets as he came into her room. “The dinner you made looks amazing, and I put it inside the oven so Nym can’t steal it.” She chuckled. “And, Pie sent us one of his most famous cheesecakes, so they’re going to be impressed,” his smile met hers through the glass.

“And, did you get the wine?”

She had asked him to go get her father’s favorite bottle from the store, and Gendry had insisted on paying for it, even if he almost choked to death when she told him the price. ‘ _It’s the least I can do,_ ’ he had told her while picking up the keys of his car, and ignoring every word she said about him taking her card with him. ‘ _He’s allowing me to live with his daughter… I mean, even if it’s just because he thinks I’m going to marry her.’_

She had hated those last words.

“I did,” Gendry said after a while, and he was so close that she got to lean her back on his chest.

It felt so good.

She looked at them in the mirror, and the first thought that came to her mind was that it would be amazing if he would put his hands on her hips, or her waist, or even a little higher. It would feel so good, she knew that. His touch had always sent shivers all over her skin, even if it was for something as innocent as to wipe a tear from her cheek.

“Good,” she said and looked down at the ring on her finger.

All of this, them lying to her parents and pretending to be engaged, should feel very, _VERY,_ wrong. But, it didn’t. For some reason beyond her understanding it felt right, the rightest she had ever felt, and that was a very scary thought.

She looked up, and their eyes connected.

“I should go double-check the living room,” he said, but Arya realized that he seemed to have no intention of doing it.

“Yeah, you should,” she replied. “Me too.” But, instead of pulling away, she put more of her own weight on his chest, thinking it’s the comfiest thing in the whole universe.

“Mhm,” he said, closing his eyes, resting his chin on the top of her head, and taking a deep breath.

She closed her eyes as well.

“Are you ready for–?” he started asking. _For a whole evening lying to your parents_ , she could auto-complete, so she nodded. He sighed. “You always told me I’m bad at lying, are you sure I can do this?” he asked, and she turned around and smiled up at him when he opened his eyes.

“You’re bad lying _TO ME,_ that’s different,” she put her hand on her arm. “I know you, I know the small gestures you make when you’re lying because I’ve seen you doing them for years. But, my parents and my brother don’t know you, not as I do, they won’t see a difference if there is one.”

Her smile was reassuring, and a second later the corners of his lips started to rise, as he took one of his hands out of his pockets and used it to brush a strand of hair away from her face, and put it behind her ear.

“Just, act as you usually do around me,” she advised him, holding his hand in hers before he could put it back in his pocket. “Just, a little bit more… touchy,” she added, as she guided his hand and put it on her waist, feeling him tremble as her fingers softly brushed his forearm until holding at his elbow.

He gulped.

“I can do that,” Gendry said, his irises going darker, as his thumb started to draw circles on her waist. It felt really good, she thought.

“Good,” she said, meeting his gaze, and suddenly felt an urge to get on her tiptoes and put her lips against his.

What would he do? Would he pull them apart or closer? Would he kiss her back, or break the kiss immediately? She noticed that, somehow, they have gotten closer. Though, she didn’t know if it was her rising or him leaning, or both. She closed her eyes, brushing her nose with his, hearing a soft grunt that came out from his throat that encouraged her to press her lips against his. But, before she could do that, their doorbell rang and they jumped apart.

“Those–” he cleared his throat. “Those must be your parents.”

She nodded.

“I guess so,” she said, her heart beating faster against her chest, and not quite sure her legs would allow her to walk to open the door for them.

“I’ll get it,” he stepped away.

“Thanks,” she said, and let out a soft giggle after seeing him almost tripping on his wait out of her bedroom.

The dinner was going really great, actually.

When she walked in the living room, Rickon was excitedly playing with Nymeria, while her father was having a friendly chat with Gendry about how their flight went. Immediately, her mother went to greet her, telling her about how good she looked, and how nice she and Gendry had _decorated_ the place.

They had put special attention on making it look like a place shared by a couple as, when he moved in, he had only brought a little amount of stuff that he had piled up in his room, making it still look like she still lived there alone. They had got frames, where they have put pictures of him with his family, and some of them together over the years, that they put next to those she had with her family and on her trips. They brought some stuff of him to the living room, like a book about metalwork his high school teacher, Mr. Mott gave him when he got accepted at art school, and some of the prizes he got from expositions he had made all over the country. He even brought a couple of his smaller sculptures from his shop to put them here and there.

“Oh, let me see it!” her mother said, right after they finished the main course when the ring on her hand called her attention. “It’s so beautiful, dear,” she held her hand and looked at Gendry. “You made it, didn’t you?” she asked him, and he nodded.

“It would have felt wrong if I didn’t,” he said before kissing Arya’s cheek, and then smiled at her with such softness it made her feel like she held the moon and the stars.

Since when was he so good at acting? She asked herself. Her mother nodded, very pleased with his response, and then looked back at the ring.

“That’s a very beautiful gem there,” she observed. “Being honest, I’ve never been a fan of uncut pieces myself, but it definitely belongs to that ring. It feels… right.”

Gendry nodded.

“Excuse me if I’m reckless, Gendry. But, I’m curious,” her mother continued, and Arya knew the next word couldn’t be good. “Where did you get it?”

Arya sent her mother an apprehensive glare. She didn’t know if Gendry would like to answer that, taking into account that he didn’t seem to be eager to tell her when he gave her the ring a couple of days ago, and now he would have to do it just because he is unable of saying no to people of whom he cared about their opinion on him, like her parents.

“I–” he rubbed the back of his neck like he does when he's nervous.

“Mom–” she started to say, as to ask her mother to not question Gendry about it. But, he quickly grabbed her left hand and took it to his lips, softly kissing her knuckles, and making her forget what she was about to say.

Rickon made a disgusted face.

“Mum didn’t own many pieces of jewelry,” he told her mother, and Arya’s heart started racing as she understood where his story was going. “So, I was surprised when I found an old ring with a real diamond at the bottom of her jewelry box,” he chuckled. “I did some research and learned that it belonged to my grandmother… her mother, so I kept the jewel just in case I would need it later… though the ring itself was too damaged, so I made this one when I decided to ask Arya to marry me.”

Arya tried to school her features to not show how surprised she was about this. Was it true? Did he actually give her something that belonged to his mother? Or had he invented this story as they had made out the one about how they had got together? She tried to read his features, looking in them for some indication that he was lying.

There weren't any.

“Oh, Gendry. That’s so sweet!” her mother sobbed, and her husband handed her his handkerchief, before nodding in their direction.

“That’s something nice you did there, lad,” he said and smiled when he saw their hands still intertwined. “Honestly, I have to admit I was a bit worried when I knew about you two getting engaged… it was so rushed I thought… well, you know. At first, I thought that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, you being Robert’s son–”

Rickon, who had chosen that exact moment to drink from his glass of water, started coughing uncontrollably. Her mother tried to help him, but he raised his hand to tell her he was okay. Gendry was paralyzed, his face as red as a beet and his mouth agape… she wanted to know what he was thinking. And she? Well, she really didn’t know what to say at that moment.

“Dad!” she cried out, that’s the only thing her brain allowed her to do.

“I’m very sorry!” her father hastened to say. “I didn't mean to offend you, Gendry. I know you’re nothing like your father. Gods know I care about the man more than I should, but he still needs to learn to keep it in his pants–”

“DAD!”

This time Rickon, whose coughing had finally ceased, had joined her when she screamed. Gendry was starting to get himself out of his shock, and her mom was looking at her husband like she didn’t believe he was saying that.

“I promise, Mr. Stark, that we haven’t… Arya isn’t–” Gendry started to say, looking like he was about to have a seizure.

She held his hand.

“I believe you, boy,” his father finally said, looking back at their joined hands. “I was just saying that that was my first thought. Couldn’t help it, could I? I’m a father, after all,” he smiled. “But, that thought didn’t stay more than a couple of minutes, and seeing you two now I can understand why the rush. You really care a lot about each other, don’t you?” he asked them, and she could feel Gendry noticeably relaxing next to her.

“She’s the most important person in my life,” Gendry replied, and she looked up at him. He was being honest, she knew that. But, she also knew he meant it as she was his best friend, nothing else.

“Aww, babe,” she said, giving him a simple peck on his lips.

How she wished they weren’t just pretending.

“Ugh, don’t do that in front of my salad,” her brother complained, and the table exploded in laughter when Arya threw a grape in his direction, that Nymeria quickly caught with her snout when it fell to the ground, after hitting his head.

“I have to confess, your father wasn’t the only one worried about… you know,” her mother said, when she walked in the kitchen, as she put the dishes in the dishwasher. “I didn’t know you were so eager to get married.”

Arya looked up at her, after closing the door.

“I know, but I assure you that you won’t be a grandmother in the near future,” she replied, as she stood up. Then, she remembered Talisa was pregnant and smiled. “Not from me, at least,” she added, and her mother smiled.

“Robb told you already,” she said, and Arya nodded. “I’m really happy for them, and can’t wait to meet my grandchild.”

“Me neither,” Arya agreed.

It felt weird to have a chat like this one with her mother, when growing up they couldn’t stand each other more than a couple of minutes before her mother would say something that would make her angrily stomp out of the room. She looked at her mother and smiled. Maybe she was wrong, maybe she would have been okay about her and Gendry living together just as friends, and she just had made things complicated with her lies. Maybe, her mother wasn’t as severe as she used to be when she was younger.

Arya looked at the living room. Gendry and her father were sitting on the couch, her father lively explaining to him about how to properly taste the wines, using the cup in his hand as an example, while her best friend smiled and absentmindedly scratching behind Nym's ears, whose snout laid on his lap. Rickon, on the other hand, was sitting on the love seat next to the window, his attention fully focused on his phone.

“You’re happy,” her mother said, as a matter of fact, and Arya looked back at her.

“I am,” she replied, even if she wasn’t asking. “Sorry if I didn’t tell you before about… all of this, we didn’t want it to be, you know, a big spectacle,” she tried, thinking about how she should stop lying to her mother.

Catelyn laughed.

“I know, sweetie,” she gave her a soft smile. “So, how long have you and Gendry been living together?” her mother asked, and she tried to remember their story, the one she and Gendry have been practicing for the last couple of days.

“Less than a month,” she replied, with a shrug. “His roommate moved and he needed a place where to live. So, I offered to move him here, as the other option was a pull-out bed in his shop,” she continued. They tried to keep it as close to reality as possible, so they would feel comfortable telling the story. “We were already engaged, so it felt like the more logical option.”

“I see–” her mother nodded. “And, do you have a date for the wedding?”

Arya’s cheeks blushed.

“Not really,” she got to the fridge to get Hot Pie’s dessert. “We decided to wait until we could tell everyone about us being together to pick a date,” she continued, and she started to cut the portions.

Her mother seemed pleased with her response.

“Oh, that’s amazing!” she said, animatedly. “Now, I can help you with all the planning. Do you want to do it here, or at Winterfell? Your father will be kind of busy tomorrow, but we can meet and go check the schedule at the Sept, surely they can find a good date for us. We can also go to scout some locations for the party, I know the Red Keep might–”

“I always thought that, if I ever got married, it would be in Winterfell” Arya cut in, not wanting to think about going around with her mother, making reservations for a wedding that wasn’t going to happen.

But, honestly, she wasn’t lying. She wasn’t like her sister, dreaming about finding her prince charming and getting married and doing all those things that couples do. But, she always thought that if she ever married, it would be there, in her home, not in some southern Sept, surrounded by people she didn’t know.

“Oh, that’s a fantastic idea!” her mother seemed to like that. “Then, I will check places in Winter Town when I get home, and I will send you pictures and a list of prices, so you can choose what you like the most, and then I can help you with the rest from there.”

Her mother was so excited she felt like the worst human being.

“Awesome,” she said, before serving the last piece of cheesecake.

“We have a plan!” Catelyn said, getting the tray with the desserts. “Now, talk with a fiancé and set a date, and I will make sure it’s clear for you,” she gave her daughter a kiss on the top of her head, and then walked to her husband, son and future son in law, offering them the plates, while Arya stood there feeling like she wanted to just scream because she had got herself, and her best friend, into a huge problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so... we got the so awaited dinner, and everything is going as planned for our two idiots... isn't it? I did an outline of the things that are going to happen in this fic, so I can finally update the amount of chapters we will have. There's a lot to happen yet. Hope you're liking this story, and it would mean the world for me to get your comments, I really love reading all of your reactions. 
> 
> Thanks again to Snapdragon76 for being my Beta.
> 
> And thank you all for being so patient in the time I didn't update. This chapter being published so close to the last one is my apologize. Love u all!


	5. The Competition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Gen?”  
> “Hmm?”  
> He kept his eyes closed, waiting for her to speak again.  
> “I–” he heard her sigh. “Rickon asked me to invite you to his swimming competition.”  
> Gendry opened his eyes and looked to his right, fixing his gaze on Arya, who was biting her lower lip as she does when she’s nervous about something. And, suddenly, he couldn’t think much of what she had told him about her brother and his invitation, as his mind had got caught up thinking about how amazing it would be if those were his teeth capturing her lips, as he laid on top of her, giving a better use to their current seat.

Gendry walked into the living room, a glass of wine in each of his hands as he approached the couch where she had thrown herself in a not very ladylike way after her parents and brother left their apartment.

“I think we can call it a success,” he said, offering her one of the glasses. She took it, giving him a look that meant she didn’t one hundred percent agree with that statement. “What?” he asked with amusement, as he sat next to her.

“My father thought I was pregnant,” she said.

He felt his face getting warmer and tried to scold his features. She didn’t need to know the images those words had brought to his head, and how much he wished they were real. His beautiful Arya, expecting his child, a little babe with her brown hair and gray eyes (even if everyone who met him and his father were always telling him that the Baratheon genes were dominant), and more importantly those things they would have to do to achieve such a thing.

“He even compared you with your father!” Arya continued, fluttering. “Aren’t you mad? Because I’m freakin livid!”

Right, he didn’t like people comparing him with his father, but his mind at the moment was somewhere else.

He shrugged. “I think I’m good with you being offended on my behalf,” he said, and then took a sip of his drink. “Besides, I understand why he thought that,” he smiled at her. “If I had a daughter, and she came to me and told me that she was getting married to a dude I didn’t even know she was dating in the first place, I would look for my newest hammer to try it on him.”

Arya rolled her eyes. “Stupid,” she said and drank more of her wine.

She looked like she had already had enough wine in her system like she had been sneakily serving herself more glasses of wine than those he had noticed during the whole night. Knowing her, and her ability to sneak around, she probably had.

“So, the wine wasn’t only to please your father,” he said, taking a sip of his own glass.

He didn’t know much about wine, but it tasted really good, and he thought he wouldn’t mind keeping a bottle of it in their apartment for special occasions, or just for them to enjoy after a long day of hard work. His bank account would be the only thing that would complain about that plan.

She laughed, and her legs ended up on his lap, for she had lain down the entire length of the chair, using the armrest as her pillow. He couldn’t help putting his free hand over one of her knees, massaging it, feeling how her body started to relax under his touch.

“During my eighteenth birthday, Jon came down from Castle Black, and he and Robb stole one of my dad’s beloved bottles from his cellar,” she started telling him, a melancholic smile dancing on her lips. He knows how much she missed her cousin, so that memory had to be really important. “They told me that, being my first official drink as a legal adult, it should be one of the best drinks out there,” she raised her glass. “And, as you can see, I liked it very - _very_ \- much.”

He chuckled.

“Yeah, I see that.”

For a while, they could only listen to Nym’s snoring.

“Mom wants to organize our wedding,” she suddenly said, and he felt something warm sliding all over his body. The thought of them getting married, having a wedding, had that effect on him, even if he knew it wasn’t real. “I told her we haven’t chosen a date yet, that we were planning to do it in Winterfell but our schedules were complicated, so she told me she would check the availability of some places there and let us know.”

He stayed silent for a while, his thumb drawing circles on her knee.

“I’m afraid,” he started saying, not looking at her. “I don’t want your parents making reservations and spending lots of money while planning a wedding that’s not going to happen.”

He could swear he felt her tense for a couple of seconds.

She shrugged. “We just make up excuses for all the dates she tells us,” she said, smiling at him like it wasn’t a big deal.

He sighed.

“And, when we run out of them?”

“Then, I guess you would have already found another place where to live, so we can tell them that we called off the engagement,” she drank more of her wine and looked at him with a smug smile. “We have nothing to worry about.”

He felt her words as a punch on his chest.

But, wasn’t it what they had agreed to do? She was right, he had told her that he would resume his search for another place to rent, as it had been their plan since he moved to her apartment. Them living together was only a temporary contingency, he just had gotten so busy at his studio, and so comfortable with the daily routine they had established those last months, that he had forgotten to keep checking. 

Gendry closed his eyes and let his head rest on the back of the couch, trying to put aside those feelings of distress that suddenly crawled inside of him, and to let go of the tension of the latest days of preparations of his body.

He should be feeling pleased. The dinner was finally over, and her parents would be going back to Winterfell after finishing their business in King’s Landing, so their lives would go back to normal. Everything was going to be fine. He just had to keep evading his father’s calls so Robert can’t make them go to that stupid party he was planning to do to celebrate their engagement, and then he and Arya just had to make everybody think their non-existent wedding was still being planned until he could find another place to live and they could tell everybody that they had just changed their minds about getting married but were still friends.

It was for the best.

He could ask Hot Pie and Shireen to help him with that.

“Gen?”

“Hmm?”

He kept his eyes closed, waiting for her to speak again.

“I–” he heard her sigh. “Rickon asked me to invite you to his swimming competition.”

Gendry opened his eyes and looked to his right, fixing his gaze on Arya, who was biting her lower lip as she does when she’s nervous about something. And, suddenly, he couldn’t think much of what she had told him about her brother and his invitation, as his mind had got caught up thinking about how amazing it would be if those were his teeth capturing her lips, as he laid on top of her, giving a better use to their current seat.

He grunted.

“Gendry?” she spoke again. “Did you hear me?”

He whipped those thoughts away. “Yeah,” he replied, deciding that he really needed to control himself. “Hmm… I guess your parents are going, aren’t they?” He saw her nod and let out a slight sigh. “They know Rickon invited me?” he continued, and Arya nodded again.

“Dad was there and said it was a great idea,” she replied, her hands playing with the hem of her top. “He thinks that it would be nice of you to attend. You know, now that you are going to be part of the family, and… all that–” she trailed off.

He stayed silent, her last words making his heart skip a beat.

A family. He didn’t have much of that. He had lost his mother, and his father was never there for him. He was proudly calling him his son now only because of his ‘ _engagement’_ to the daughter of his best friend, and because his _oh-so-perfect_ first son with his ex-wife has done nothing but destroy his family name in recent years. He wasn’t even going to mention his relationship with him. Myrcella and Tommen, on the other hand, were nice. But, she was more interested in fashion and her Dornish boyfriend, and he was too young for them to have anything in common.

Shireen was, definitely, the only person he shared blood and last name with who really cared about him, and who he proudly called his family. And then, there were people he didn’t share an ounce of blood with, but to whom he considered more like his family than those who were supposed to be: Davos, Hot Pie, and Arya, especially Arya, whose family he has looked at with admiration (and perhaps a little jealousy) for many years. And, now Ned Stark, a man who he has admired since he met him, was accepting him to his family because of a lie.

He was going to hell.

“I mean,” Arya continued when she didn’t get an answer. “I can tell them you got a lot of work to do, they will underst–”

“I’ll go,” Gendry cut in, and then looked back at her face. “I’d like to be there for Rickon if that’s good with you,” he smiled. If he was going to hell because of this lie, then at least he was going to take as much as possible from it. “Besides, he was bragging so much about his skills, that I want to judge them for myself.”

She laughed. “He’s really good, though,” a proud smile danced on her lips. “He got it from our mom's family. Our great-uncle got a couple of gold medals at the Olympics, and mum was at the swimming team in her school and continued until she got married to my dad and got pregnant with Rob. I think that she considered going back to training… but, at some point between having Bran and me, she figured out that dealing with so many children, plus Jon and Theon, was a high-intensity sport itself.”

Gendry laughed.

“Can’t blame her, you alone are a handful” he teased, and she gave him a soft kick with her heel at his thigh.

“Hey!” she complained but started laughing immediately, and he couldn’t help but stare at her as she closed her eyes and shook with laughter, arching her body in a way that made him think in so many things he could do so she kept doing it.

_For fuck’s sake._

He peeled that thought off his mind and tried to think in _anything_ else because he was sure he wouldn’t be able to hide his arousal if he wouldn’t be able to stop his blood rushing south, mostly because her legs were still laying on his lap, very close to what would be the indisputable evidence.

His mind went back to those kisses they had shared in the hallway between their rooms, the desire he had felt then, and the way her body felt pressed against his. And, he shouldn’t be thinking that, really, he could feel his body starting to react to the images in his mind, mostly because they were real. But, then, he started to try to put some sense to the desire he had felt in her response to his lips against hers, and came to the conclusion that it was just logical… they are humans, their bodies react to closeness, and she wasn’t so used to undergoing it that it was more than normal for her to want more.

But, he didn’t want her to do something she would regret later. He wanted her passion, yes. Why wouldn’t he? But, he wanted _more,_ not just hooking up, no matter how much his own desire was boiling inside of him, how much he wanted to kiss every inch of her skin. And, he was sure he would scare her off if he told her that, that if they were to go ahead he would have to tell her the truth about his feelings, because he _HAD_ to, and it would make everything weird, it would destroy their friendship. 

He couldn’t stand the idea of losing her.

She was the most important person in his life, the only one who cared about him all those years, and that made him feel like he was someone important.

He wouldn’t lose her.

Closing his eyes, he promised himself he would do everything to keep his feelings on track and avoid letting them take control of his actions, as he couldn’t stand to touch her body knowing her heart was out of reach.

“…and I think I should dye my hair blonde,” she was saying when he came out of his thoughts, and so he looked at her with confusion wrinkling his brow.

“What?”

When did their conversation move from her mother’s swimming career to hairstyles, and why would she dye her hair in such color? He had nothing against it, of course, but he always thought she would prefer any other color instead of the Lannister’s blonde. Hell, he could even imagine her with her beautiful locks sporting very bright bubblegum pink on it.

She started laughing, making his confusion grow. “Of course, that’s what you chose to hear,” she said, and she might have read the confusion in his expression because then she spoke again. “I was telling you that Bran told me that Rick’s dating one of the girls in his swimming team and that I was excited to meet her at the competition, but you seemed to be far away in your thoughts, so I was testing it.”

He rolled his eyes.

“So, you’re not dyeing your hair?” he wanted to make sure.

“Not blonde,” she replied, and they both laughed. “And, not for now.”

Gendry nodded, and then they started talking about different hairstyles and colors that would look on her, until she let out a loud yawn and sat up on the couch, looking at him with her big eyes so bright from the alcohol she had been drinking. Gods, she looked gorgeous, and he needed to take a shower before getting to his bed that night because suddenly he felt like burning.

The next couple of days passed by in the blink of an eye.

Like every day, he would leave their apartment early in the morning, and spend the rest of his day working at the forge. He had already delivered the sculpture for the Tyrells, even receiving a message of thanks from Olenna Tyrell herself, after she received the gift from her grandchildren.

His latest project wasn’t a request, but an idea he got from his chat with Arya about her mother’s family, which sketch he had shown to Davos who told him that if he got to do it as he planned it would be one of his best works.

Then, at dusk, he would drive back to their apartment to spend the rest of his evening with Arya, enjoying that routine that they had created for themselves, and that he would fully enjoy as long as he could have it, as he had already set Shireen to help him to find another place where to live.

“Why don’t you just tell Arya how you feel about her, and then get engaged for real?” his cousin had asked him on Tuesday night, as they were sitting in his car in front of the gate of the Baratheon manor after he had picked her up from her last class at KLU and invited her to go for ice cream to ask her help to hunt down a new place. “I’m pretty sure it would be easier,” she smirked, and he shook his head.

“The only thing I would achieve doing that would be losing her,” he replied, with a sigh. “Are you going to help me?” he asked again, and she rolled her eyes.

“I will check some real state pages and email you pictures of the places I like, as I know you suck at doing any kind of research,” Shireen told him, and then looked at the huge gate in front of them. She had already invited him to come in, but he had declined. “Are you sure you don’t want to come in?” she asked, again, as she got her backpack from the backseat. “I’m pretty sure uncle Robert is at the club with the Starks… he said he wanted to beat Mr. Stark at their annual golf game, which I sincerely doubt. And, my dad might be still at his office, he’s never here before suppertime.”

Gendry shrugged. “Maybe another day,” he replied because he didn’t want to say that he despised the sole idea of getting inside his family’s place, as it was filled with the memory of the many mistreatments he had received from his father’s ex-wife when he was a child. “I told Arya I would get us Braavosi take away food for dinner, and I don’t want her to starve.”

“Such a considerate fake fiancé,” his cousin teased and gave him a hug before leaving his car, promising that she would send him what he requested.

That’s why, on Thursday morning, he was in their living room scrolling through the pictures of potential lofts his cousin had sent him, as he waited for Arya to get ready to go to her brother’s competition.

He had closed the studio for the day, asking Davos to reschedule any appointments with potential clients he had for that day and to take care those who would go to buy something from their gallery, telling them that if they wanted to speak personally with the artist they would have to make an appointment for the next day, as he had some family commitment to attend to.

“Arya! It’s getting late,” he called her, as he closed the last picture with a frown. All those places looked good, but somehow none of them seemed _right_ for him. He would have to send a message to Shireen to see if she could send him more suggestions. “If we don't go out in the next five minutes, your brother will compete before we even get there.”

He heard her laugh.

“Just a minute!” she said, and so he stood up, putting his closed laptop on the coffee table, and then went to get his wallet and his keys from the pantry, keeping them in his pockets. They were going to use his car, as Arya was always looking for an opportunity to avoid getting behind the wheel. “Since when have you become Mr. On Time?” she asked, as she walked out from the aisle, putting her hair in a messy bun.

He felt his mouth go agape.

She was wearing a pair of high-waisted shorts, like those she had worn the day they had met again in Hot Pie’s, which gave him the perfect view of her very long toned legs. He gulped. On top, she was wearing an old King’s and Dragons tank-top that he was sure used to belong to him and that she had cut to make it more suitable for her petite shape, which didn’t do much to avoid him being able to have a glimpse of her purple bralette on her sides. The view and the images in his head that it gave him sent shivers all over his body, so he had to look away for his own sanity.

“That’s–” he cleared his throat when his voice came out hoarse. “That’s what you’re going to wear for your brother’s tournament?” he asked.

He couldn’t meet her parents with her looking like that.

_Nope._

“It’s too hot today,” she said like it was enough reason. _It wasn’t_. He looked down at his attire: dark jeans and a light blue polo that she had given him at one of his birthdays, and felt like he was overdressed, again. “I would die of suffocation if I had to wear long pants,” she had added, before getting an oversized plaid shirt from the back of one of the stools (he was almost sure belonged to him too), and putting it on.

He sighed with relief.

“ _Right_ ,” he said, and as they left their place, he swore he saw a glimpse of a satisfied smirk on her face.

“There you are!” her mother greeted them as soon as they got to their seats at the Olympic pool bleachers in King’s Landing High, giving both of them a hug, which in his case took him by surprise.

Her husband did the same, offering him something to drink, as Catelyn Stark looked at her daughter from head to toes. “Arya, dear… what are you wearing?” she asked, the disapproval pretty obvious in her voice.

“We are in a high school swimming tournament, mom,” Arya said, rolling her eyes. “It’s not like we are having brunch with your friends at the country club.” She added, and Gendry couldn’t help notice how her mother looked like she was about to go meet the queen herself.

“Well, I thought we could go to the club together with your brother to celebrate after the award ceremony,” her mother replied, and he couldn’t help to think how nice it was that she was so sure about her son’s win that day, that she was already planning a victory gathering.

His own mother had been the only person who had believed in his skills so blindly… no, not really. Now that he thought about it more closely, there was another person: Arya. He felt his smile starting to grow in his lips, as he thought about the many times she had encouraged him to continue when he had thought about abandoning a project that had been too difficult to finish, telling him that if there was an artist as skilled to make it, it would be him. He looked at the pool, around which kids were warming up, getting ready for when they were called to compete, so he could hide the emotions that suddenly invaded him from his companions.

“If you think I’m not wearing the right clothing to go to the club, we could simply go somewhere else,” Arya sat next to him, and accepted a drink from her father’s hand, without taking her eyes off her mother. “I don’t think Rick would mind,” he felt her hand laying on his thigh and mentally swore.

“I guess he wouldn’t” her mother agreed with a sigh, and then sat in between her daughter and husband, looking at him with a very mother-like smile. “We’re very glad you could join us, Gendry. How’s work going? Renly told us that Olenna was very pleased with the piece you made for her birthday.”

He felt Arya’s hand giving his leg a soft squeeze and smiled.

“I’m glad she liked it,” he replied, with a nod. “I’m working on another thing right now, but it’s not for any specific client. I got inspiration from the other night during our dinner,” he confessed and noticed the sincere excitement in the woman’s eyes as he took his phone out and showed her the picture of the sketch he had done before starting to work at the forge, noticing the same expression in Arya’s eyes, as she also looked at the screen of his phone.

“Please, send us a picture when you finish it,” Ned Stark spoke from behind of his wife’s shoulder, and he nodded, putting his phone back in his jeans just on time to hear the commentator announcing that the competition was about to start, so everyone had to get to their seats.

Gendry didn’t know much about these kinds of competitions, he’s more of a footie enthusiast, so he didn’t pay much attention at the rest of the matches until he spotted the younger Stark getting in position to start swimming as soon as he got the start shot. Arya, on the other hand, was practically jumping in her seat as she looked all those kids going from one side to the other of the pool, making comments like _‘that kid is fast!’_ and _‘I’m pretty sure that’s not allowed’_ when one of the competitors got very close to invading another swimmer’s track.

He considered it pretty amusing until his eyes inevitably went to her long legs every time she stood, and he had to recite the list of cities of Essos in his head as a way to avoid having other kinds of thoughts.

The heats went first, and Rickon was the indisputable winner of his group, having more than ten seconds of advantage compared to the other boys. And, when he also won his group’s semifinal by a very similar margin, even Miss Stark was jumping in her seat and cheering like her daughter and husband were doing.

“I’m getting something to eat, are you coming?” Arya spoke directly to his ear, pulling him from the arm as a way to tell she wasn’t accepting a no as a response.

Gendry smiled. “As m’lady commands,” he replied and could feel her parents’ eyes on their backs as they walked away after she gave him a soft blow on his shoulder and called him stupid for continuing to use that joke.

There was a short recess while everything was being set for the finals, and many of the spectators took advantage of these moments to go to the bathroom, or to buy something to eat in the food trucks that had been arranged behind the bleachers. Arya being one of the latest. 

As they were in line to buy hot dogs, he felt her back suddenly being pressed against his chest, and her hands sliding down his forearms until they were intertwined with his hands, guiding them so they were sitting at her waist.

“What are you doing?” he asked in her ear, resisting the urge to start drawing circles on her hips with his thumbs.

“Mom’s looking,” she said, looking up at him with a mischievous smile. “Thought about giving her a little show.”

He knew that being subtle was not one of his qualities, so he used all his willpower not to look where they were sitting to avoid giving himself away. Instead, he kept his gaze on her eyes, feeling himself tremble as she brought one of her hands to the nape of his neck to pull him down and kiss his chin.

“You’re so tall,” she complained, and that brought him out of the dizzy state he had plunged into after her kiss.

Gendry chuckled. “Haven’t you considered that perhaps you are the one who is too short?” he teased and felt her elbow digging into his ribs. He laughed louder. “You know, you shouldn’t attack people that are bigger than you,” he rested his chin on the top of her head, and this time it was her who laughed.

“Then I wouldn’t get to do that to anyone,” she said, pressing her body further against his, and making him let out a soft involuntary groan. “Not even Rickon.”

They continued teasing each other until it was their turn to make their order, and when they had their hot dogs in their hands walked back to their seats, his free arm around her shoulders and hers around his waist. He did not miss the curious gaze of her mother in their direction, nor the soft smile she had on her lips as she looked back at the pool, although he did not know how to interpret them.

The final had been very hard to watch, as Rickon and some kid from KLH swam neck to neck, taking turns in first place during all the four lapses to the pool. It kept him on the edge on his seat, making him feel like he was watching a game from his favorite footie team until Arya’s younger brother finally managed to secure the victory being only 0.4 seconds ahead from the boy who got second place. He wasn’t much given to cheering and screaming as many people do, that’s well known. But, at some point, he had gotten on his feet and started to shout Rickon’s name, with Arya perched on his back like a koala.

It was amazing.

After the award ceremony was over, they met with Rickon and Lyanna, the girl Arya had told him was her brother’s girlfriend, at the parking lot. Both of them wearing casual clothes and their gold medals proudly hanging from their necks. Gendry smiled the whole time as introductions were made, very interested in knowing about the young girl who had been able to tame the savage wolf, and then looked at Arya with concern when Mrs. Stark suggested they go to the club to celebrate the victory.

“You told me I couldn’t go to the club with these clothes,” she grumbled, and her mother shrugged.

“I changed my mind,” she said, as she tousled her son’s hair. “You’re invited too, Lyanna,” she told the girl with a soft smile, and she looked like a deer caught in headlights, as she surely didn’t expect to be also invited to the family gathering.

“I don’t want to be a bother–“

Catelyn cut her off. “It’s not a bother, dear,” she said, waving her hand. “I realized your mother and sisters couldn't come, and I think you deserve to celebrate your triumph as well.”

After that, there was no argument that the girl could give to refuse, so she just followed them to their cars after Ned went to inform their trainer that they were taking both kids to celebrate and would take them back to their hotel no later than dinner time.

Gendry noticed her trying to pull the hem of her shorts down while they were driving behind her parents’ rented car towards the club, and let out a soft laugh. “Now, you’re regretting your fashion decisions, aren’t you?” he said, his eyes back on the road.

“Shut up, stupid,” she grumbled.

He sighed.

“I was going to tell you that there’s my jean jacket at the backseat, so you could put it on and knot the plaid shirt around your hips.”

She didn’t say a word. Instead, she took off the seatbelt and threw herself to the back seat, but not before blatantly passing her perfectly shaped butt in front of his face. He swore under his breath while trying to focus on not losing control of the car’s wheel and send them to a ditch.

“Did you say something?” she asked while taking off her (or his?) plaid shirt, and doing what he had suggested her to do.

“Nothing,” he replied, sending her a look through the rear-view mirror.

She fetched his jacket from the floor of the car and put it on over her very petite shape, looking at him with a bright smile on her lips, before jumping back to the front seat and fasting her belt.

“Better?” he asked, and she nodded.

“Better.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you like this chapter, sorry if it's taking me forever to update. Please, tell me in the comments what you think it's going to happen with these two.
> 
> And, again... thank you snapdragon76 for being an amazing beta.


	6. The Stags

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh, for fucks sake… I need a drink,” he said, walking to the fridge and taking a beer. “Want one?”  
> Hearing this, she cocked an incredulous eyebrow. “Didn’t have it enough with the fancy Dornish wine, did you?” Arya asked, but reached out her hand to accept the offered drink, after getting rid of his flannel shirt. “For a while there I thought I would have to carry you to the car,” she teased him, as he opened both cans and gave her hers.  
> “I thought the same,” he replied, after a long gulp from his can. “But, couldn’t let your parents think I’m a drunk like…” he trailed off, “you know.”  
> Arya nodded.  
> She knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, first of all... I'M VERY SORRY! This update has been sitting in my laptop since may, but the muse abandoned me, so I couldn't finish it until now. 
> 
> Thank you to those who are still around, I hope you like this chapter.
> 
> And, thanks to snapdragon76 for helping me beta, you're the best!!!

Arya sighed when she stepped out of Gendry’s car and looked at the building in front of her, a grin of apprehension appearing on her face as many bad memories from her childhood rushed in her head at the mere sight of the red structure, which used to be the place where her father would take them every time she and her sister would accompany him on his work trips.

And, it's not like the place was bad… it was very nice. It had a cool park, stables where she could ask for a mare to ride around the wide grounds, and a pool with a view to the open sea that could, according to many, shame the Dornish water gardens. But all of those things used to lose appeal every time Sansa and her friends would make fun of her, calling her names, or even that time near the night when she met Gendry when Jeyne put gum in her hair and they had to cut it off.

“What’s wrong?” Gendry’s voice in her ear, and his hand on her lower back, brought her back to the present, making her look away from the huge building and fix her gaze on his blue irises.

Why, all of a sudden, she felt like all bad memories had just evaporated out of herself? She looked away, trying to organize her thoughts.

“Nothing, I–” she preferred not to talk about her stormy teenage relationship with her sister, mostly because that was already in the past, and nowadays Sansa was one of the people she trusted the most.

It cost them Bran's accident, almost losing their father from cardiac arrest, her sister’s request for help to get out of her abusive relationship with Joffrey Baratheon, and a lot of therapy. But, in the end, they finally got to understand each other.

“Yes…?” he asked when it seemed like she wasn’t going to continue, and she just shrugged trying to look like there wasn’t any big deal.

There wasn’t.

“I just wish mother had chosen another place to celebrate,” she replied, and he agreed with a nod. “Have you ever been here?” she asked then, and a frown appeared on his face. Immediately, she hated herself for making such a question.

“Nah, I'm too bloody lowborn to frequent this place.” Arya was about to scold him for speaking like that about himself, but then she noticed the amused smirk on his lips. “I used to be encouraged (forced, actually) by my mother to go to Robert’s manor and attend his stupid parties. But, that was all. Places like this one weren’t allowed for kids from Flea Bottom, and that’s something Robert’s ex-wife would remind me every time I would be around and she would make plans with her children to come here,” he looked away.

Arya hated Cersei Lannister, she hated her for the way she had treated a boy who was not to blame for the events that led to his birth. Also, it's not as if Robert had been unfaithful to her with Gendry's mother. He was… repeatedly, if the gossip that has spread in Westeros society is accurate, but not with her, since her best friend was born much before they even started their relationship. Besides, the marriage ended because Robert discovered her being unfaithful, so she was not faultless either.

“I guess she was afraid that if I spent more time around Robert, he would care more about me than their children, and therefore give me a greater inheritance. I don’t know,” he shrugged.

“That would be a shitty excuse to threaten a boy as she did to you,” she replied, and he chuckled.

“Yeah,” he remarked, and she reached to take his hand in hers.

His smile softened, and she noticed he was about to say something important, but then he looked up to something behind her and stopped. She looked over her shoulder, following his gaze, and noticed her parents, Rickon and Lyanna walking in their direction, so she just promised herself they would continue their conversation later.

“Here you are,” her father said when he got next to them. Her mother was busy talking to someone on the phone, and Rickon and Lyanna were chatting animatedly about the competition. “We didn’t know where you had parked.”

“It’s kind of full,” Gendry replied, and Ned nodded.

“Yeah, it seems the whole city’s here today,” he said, and then looked around, making her laugh.

“Perfect! Send her my regards,” her mother was saying to the person on the other side of the call, as she approached them. “I think he’ll understand you couldn’t make it to the competition, don’t worry,” she continued and gave her son a soft smile. “Yeah, you too,” Catelyn resumed, before saying goodbye, and it was then that she seemed to notice Arya’s poor attempt to make her outfit presentable, as she raised one of her perfectly trimmed eyebrows in her direction.

“Who was it?” her father asked before Arya could.

Her mother smiled. “Theon,” she said, and then looked at Rickon. “He apologizes for not coming to your competition, but he isn’t in town, his work sent him to the Vale for the week.” 

Theon had started to attend Robb and Jon’s school when they were twelve or thirteen, she couldn’t remember, and quickly the three boys became inseparable. He was always in their home, playing football and videogames with her brother and cousin until she started to see them as a package.

There was no Robb and Jon, without Theon.

It was when they were fifteen that her brother and cousin discovered that the boy was being severely mistreated, both physically and mentally, by his father, and spoke to their father about it. Immediately, Ned Stark called all his contacts at the family court, and after a long investigation, and a much longer trial, Theon’s father lost his custody and the Starks became his foster family.

“Did he meet with Sansa yet?” her father asked, and her mother nodded.

“He told me they had dinner last night, and that they’re going to meet later as well,” she told him, as she put her phone back in her purse. “I’m glad he’s there for her in a moment like this, she had been having a hard time after she and Harrold broke up.”

‘After she discovered that he had cheated on her, more precisely,’ Arya mentally added. ‘Several times, and with several women.’

Considering what had happened with Joffrey, Arya had concluded her sister didn’t have much luck with men unless this week with Theon around made her finally tell him what she felt for him.

Arya has kept Sansa's infatuation with their adoptive brother a secret for years, ever since she had confessed it to her after drinking way too many glasses of wine when they used to share her current apartment.

“That’s a shame,” Rickon cut in, disappointed. “I wanted you to meet my brother,” he spoke to Lyanna.

Arya read the silent question in Gendry’s eyes.

Another brother?

“Theon’s our Foster brother,” she replied, as she was used to having this kind of silent conversation with him. “He wasn't with us yet when we went to Storm's End.”

Gendry nodded.

“But, why haven't I met him if he lives here?” he asked, as her family walked in front of them into the building, out of earshot.

“Theon never stays long in a place,” Arya explained, with a shrug. “He moved to King’s Landing less than a year ago, but every time I’ve called to invite him for dinner at ours he has been away. Only once I caught him here, and he only had time for lunch, because he had a flight to catch that very night.”

They got to the restaurant, and so the conversation died as they approached the table, where her family was already settling in.

“The ribs here are amazing,” her father told Gendry, giving him a menu. “Though, I prefer their roast beef.” He looked down at the drinks listed and then spoke to the waitress so she bought them some of their best Dornish wine.

Because of his victory, Rickon was allowed to have one cup.

The dinner went well, Arya noticed. Gendry wasn’t fully comfortable in a place like that, she knew that, but as her father started to ask him about his work, and then about stuff like sports and some other things that she didn’t even pay attention to, she noticed how he started to relax and enjoy the evening.

That, until a very well known man approached their table.

Gendry, who had been holding her hand under the table during a great part of his conversation with her father, tensed.

“Ned! Long time no see you, old man!” Robert Baratheon shouted, embracing her father in a bear hug, as he had tried to politely clasp hands. “What a nice surprise to see you here at the club,” he continued, letting Ned go. “And, with my boy!” He walked to where she and Gendry stood due to courtesy, slapping him on his back, his golden stag-shaped cufflinks shining at the sunlight coming from the huge restaurant stained glass windows.

“Father,” Gendry acknowledged him with a nod. He usually called him by his given name, but in a public place like this, he knew it wouldn’t be the right thing to do. Too many people around, who would correctly assume the father-son relationship wasn’t that good, and get some money telling the news about it. “I didn’t think we would see you here,” he commented, though in retrospect it was pretty obvious.

That was Robert’s favorite place.

“Of course, you didn’t,” the blue eyes, that were just like Gendry’s, shone in mischief. “But, what a nice surprise, isn’t it?” he added, and then signaled a waitress to bring another chair for him without being invited to join them.

Gendry only groaned in response.

“We are celebrating Rickon’s victory in his competition today,” her mother spoke, as they all took their seats, and the youngest Stark proudly showed his gold medal. “And, Lyanna’s,” she added, looking at said girl.

For a moment, Robert’s eyes seemed to be focused somewhere else (in some different time, perhaps), before they found said girl, and he finally understood that they weren’t talking about the woman he had once loved and lost, but about a young girl who was her namesake.

“Congratulations,” he said, and then looked back at Rickon. “Both of you,” he added, and then looked at Catelyn with a smirk that told Arya that the man had already had many drinks before bumping into them. “Honestly, I thought you were celebrating our beloved children’s engagement,” he continued, and then his eyes were back at Gendry, and she could feel her best friend’s unevenness instantly. “About which, I do not understand why I had to find out from someone else, and not from my own flesh and blood.”

“We wanted to keep it for ourselves for a while,” Arya interjected when she noticed that Gendry’s anger wouldn’t allow him to reply in a very polite way and that he seemed to have poured himself another glass of wine. “Which, thanks to my dear father, is not a possibility anymore,” she added, looking at her father in a way that told him she wasn’t mad at him, even if she secretly was, and he raised his hands defensively.

“I thought he knew,” Ned excused himself, and then looked at his old friend. “I was actually about to scold him for not telling me.”

“And, then the tables turned,” Robert replied.

“That they did,” he agreed.

“Well,” Robert’s hand, soundly slapping the tabletop, startled everyone. “Now that the cat is out of the bag, I believe a proper celebration is much required, isn’t it? The Stark and Baratheon families are finally joining!” He raised his glass with excitement. “Remember how we always dreamed about that, Ned? About sharing a grandchild? And, it almost happened, before that idiotic child Cersei gave me went and screwed it up with your other daughter, but I’m sure my boy here is nothing like him.” Another slap on Gendry’s back and Arya’s grip on his hand tightened to prevent him from using his closed fist to punch his progenitor’s face.

“A celebration seems like a great idea to me,” her mother agreed, and warning bells started to sound in Arya’s head. They were outnumbered, as Catelyn Tully-Stark would never say no to an opportunity to organize a social gathering. “It is proper to do an engagement party, isn’t it? Our families are very well known in Westeros, and if they marry without us making some kind of announcement, everyone will believe we are hiding it, or worse, spread fake assumptions as news,” she concluded.

And, it made sense, a hell lot of sense, but there was a huge problem: Gendry and her weren’t getting married.

“We don’t want to be a bother,” Gendry seemed to gain his voice again, and Arya noticed that he was looking at everyone but his father. “An engagement party seems like something expensive, and I can only speak for myself here, but you knowing that I want to spend the rest of my life with Arya is more than enough.”

She knew he was lying, that it was him trying to make them change their mind about making a party to announce their fake engagement, but she couldn’t fight back the flush that crept up her face.

“Aww… Gen, that’s so sweet!” she said and kissed his cheek.

Just for show, she told herself.

When she turned back to the other people in the table, she noticed different expressions in all of them. Robert seemed like he was already envisioning his future grandchildren, her mother was wearing a very pleased smile that told her she was internally thinking about their catering options, while her father was filled with pride. Rickon, on the other hand, was grimacing.

“That’s my call to leave the table,” he announced and stood. “Let’s go, Lya! I will show you around,” he told his girlfriend, and Arya rolled her eyes.

“You’ve never been here,” she told him, receiving a chuckle from his companion, who despite this got up from her seat.

“We are here celebrating your triumph, Rickon,” their mother chastised him, but he just shrugged it off.

“The topic changed to wedding preparations, and as much as I’m happy for you two,” he looked at Gendry and herself. “I’d rather wander around than getting in the middle of such conversation.”

Robert laughed, making some heads turn in their direction.

“Smart boy!” he said, and then took a card from his wallet and gave it to him. “Go to the tennis court, my youngest is there with some of his friends, they will let you in there with this,” he suggested, and the teenagers left the table, Lyanna telling Rickon that she had never played tennis, and he promising her that he would teach her.

Arya looked back at her mother.

“We don’t need an engagement party,” she pleaded, but Robert snorted.

“Of course, you do!” he said, and she could feel Gendry tensing again. If looks could kill… she gave his hand a slight squeeze.

“No, we don’t,” she contradicted him. “What happens between Gendry and me, only concerns us, and we are telling you about it because you are our family and we care about you, but we do not want our relationship to become some kind of media show where you can sell us as the couple that was promised, or whatever.”

Now, it was Gendry’s hand that squished hers.

“No one wants to make a show, dear,” her mother spoke, softly. “We can do something small for the family and close friends, whatever you’re comfortable with. We could celebrate it in Storm’s End if Robert agrees,” she looked at the man who looked like a five years old bouncing on his seat.

“Oh, I agree!” he replied, and Catelyn nodded.

“It could be a family vacation, just like the one we did when you were younger, and only take an evening to make a toast in your honor,” she continued. “We would have pictures to share with the media, so there's no gossiping around about the authenticity of your relationship, and also enjoy some time together as a family. I haven’t had all my children under the same roof at the same time in a couple of years, and it could be the perfect opportunity for that,” she concluded, and Arya tried to search in her head for a reason why that couldn’t happen, and she soon discovered that there wasn’t one, besides admitting that they weren’t going to marry.

She looked at Gendry, and he seemed to be as argumentless as her.

They were screwed.

She sighed, and her mother took it as her agreement.

“Perfect!” her mother clapped. “Then it’s settled, when do you think it would be a good time, Robert?” she asked the man, and as he replied Arya zoned out.

This was her fault for not being capable of telling her parents the truth, for putting her best friend in a situation he would rather not be involved in, and for not being able to say no to her parents. This was ALL her fault, and she was sure as hell Gendry would tell her that much when they’re alone, and he would be right about doing so because if it wasn’t for her lies they wouldn’t be in their current situation.

A month.

They would meet with her family and the Baratheon bunch (and others) in Storm’s End in a month.

They decided this date because the youngest wouldn’t be in classes, and Sansa would have finally finished her last year and wouldn’t start her intern program until a week later. The rest of the dinner had been her mother and Robert calling everyone to ask if they would be available, and after receiving more positive than negative responses, the date was marked on the calendar.

Rickon had returned not long after the calls were finished, accompanied by Lya, Tommen, and another boy who didn’t get to introduce himself, and he was very excited about the idea of that trip to Storm's End, since the last time he was too young to remember how it had been.

Her father hugged her tightly when they were saying goodbye.

Her parent’s flight would be the next day, very early in the morning, so they wouldn't have time to see each other before that.

During the whole ride home, Gendry had been silent, the only sound that surrounded them was that of the engine of the car since they had not bothered to turn on the music, so she was expecting the outburst of rage from him as soon as they entered her apartment and closed the door behind them.

There was an outburst, but it wasn’t the kind she was expecting.

She saw him while he doubled over with laughter, and she couldn’t hold a chuckle herself.

“Oh, for fucks sake… I need a drink,” he said, walking to the fridge and taking a beer. “Want one?”

Hearing this, she cocked an incredulous eyebrow. “Didn’t have it enough with the fancy Dornish wine, did you?” Arya asked, but reached out her hand to accept the offered drink, after getting rid of his flannel shirt. “For a while there I thought I would have to carry you to the car,” she teased him, as he opened both cans and gave her hers.

“I thought the same,” he replied, after a long gulp from his can. “But, couldn’t let your parents think I’m a drunk like…” he trailed off, “you know.”

Arya nodded.

She knew.

“He has a way to get under my skin no one else has,” he shook his head, leaning against the kitchen counter. “We almost made it, didn’t we? Your parents would leave tomorrow, and we only had to make out any excuse about the wedding to avoid putting a date for the next few months until I could find another place. But, no… he appeared and, for fuck’s sake, started to call me ‘my boy’ as if he ever fucking cared about me, and said that he would have wanted to know about the wedding from his flesh and blood. Well… I fucking would have wanted my flesh and blood to be there when I was a child, so my mother wouldn’t have to work extra hours so that we wouldn't starve, or when she had the fucking stroke, so I wouldn’t have to beg the hospital for them to attend her without health insurance, or better! When I had to take care of a fucking funeral being a fucking teenager, if it wasn’t for you and your father, I…”

There was the expected outburst.

Though, she had thought it was going to be directed at her stupid plan, not at his father’s behavior.

She put her beer on the counter and walked towards him, taking his face between her hand, and making him look straight into her eyes, and subsequently losing herself in the blue of his.

That particular shade of blue that was usually invading her dreams.

“Gendry,” she spoke his name slowly. “Don’t allow him to do this to you, you’re much better than this.”

He stayed silent for a while.

“He’s a hypocrite,” he finally spoke after releasing a long sigh.

“I know,” she replied, still sunk in his eyes.

“I don’t owe him anything,” he continued. “Not even letting him know if I'm engaged, even if it's false.”

That last part stung.

“You don’t,” she replied, even so.

“He messed up our whole plan.” He too seemed to be in the same spell she was in. “We will have to go to Storm’s End, and pretend to be engaged in front of our families, friends, and the Seven know how many more people your mother and he will invite to that thing.”

“We will endure,” she spoke, unconsciously getting closer to him. “It wouldn’t be that hard, would it? I mean, It’s just a weekend.”

“It’s just a weekend,” he repeated, as their foreheads touched.

“And, we've gotten good at pretending,” she continued, and felt his hands on her hips. At what point did he get rid of his can? a part of her brain wondered. The other was way too distracted by their closeness.

“Have we?” he asked, and she could tell that his eyes had darkened.

“Mhm…” she tentatively brushed his lips and heard him let out a groan. “The very best.”

‘Kiss me, kiss me’ she pleaded in her head, but he seemed to be holding himself.

“Arya, I-” his name in his lips was barely a whisper, and she couldn't take it anymore.

So, she kissed him.

And it wasn’t long until she felt his doubts crumble, as his grip on her hips tightened, and he kissed her back with such intensity that she had to let go of his face and hold onto his shoulders firmly to keep her balance.

Her mind shorted out, and suddenly the entire universe ceased to exist, and all that mattered was the delicious feel of his lips against hers, his tongue doing things to her that made her legs weak, and the warmth emanating from his palms, as they slid down to grab her behind.

Fuck.

She moaned into his mouth as her back hit the kitchen counter, and his strong arms carried her to make her sit on it, shrinking their height difference, and allowing him to slide his lips down her neck.

Holly sh…!

Her whole body shook when she felt him biting the skin from that spot that joins her neck and shoulder, and her hands moved to grab at his shaggy raven hair, as her legs circled his middle, pulling him closer with her heels until she could feel his hardness against that part of her body that was already pooling from desire.

“Gendry…” his name came out in a moan against his ear, and it seemed to encourage him, as she felt him pressing himself further against her.

Fuck, fuck… fuck.

Her hands sought for his face again, pulling it up so their lips would hungrily meet again, as she started to rock her hips against him.

He groaned into her mouth, his fingers digging hard into her thighs.

“Arya, we shouldn’t–” his words died as she captured his lips again in a kiss he gladly responded. “Arya…” he tried again as they had to pull apart to catch some air.

“Don’t say it,” she chastised him. “Don’t say we shouldn’t be doing this because I’m going to hit you.”

Her threat made him chuckle.

“I won’t,” he promised, pressing their foreheads back together, and taking a long breath to calm himself. “But, you know we can’t…” he breathed out. “Not tonight, at least.”

She groaned.

“Why not?” Arya asked, her hands going down his chest.

“Because–” he trailed off as her hand sunk under his shirt.

“Because?” she asked, her fingertips slowly tracing the lines of his abdomen as she remembered her plan to seduce him.

She had completely forgotten about it until that very exact moment.

“We aren’t thinking clearly,” Gendry replied, closing his eyes as to invoke all his willpower to not kiss her again.

“Isn’t that the whole idea of this?” she asked, and he grunted when she caressed the soft skin under his navel. “To not think clearly?”

“I don’t want you to regret it tomorrow,” he continued, putting some distance between them.

Only a few inches, though.

“I wouldn’t regret it,” she spoke, clutching his waistband.

“Yes, you will,” he took another step back, and she wanted to scream from frustration. And to hit him, that would help as well. “Arya, I can’t just fuck you against the kitchen counter after ranting about the prick who accidentally put me in my mum’s womb.”

Contrary to what he was saying, for her, it seemed like a very nice proposition.

“OK,” Arya conceded, knowing he wouldn’t give in about this… he was that stubborn.

Gendry sighed.

“I think we should talk about this,” he said, and she groaned.

Here would come the ‘this can destroy our friendship’, and the ‘I like you as a friend only’, so she decided to beat him to it.

Her ego wouldn’t survive otherwise.

“What’s to talk about?” she asked, trying to sound casual. “We’ve both been single for a while, and we’ve been very physical with each other during the last few days, so it’s very obvious that this was bound to happen. We’re human, Gendry, and the flesh responds to closeness…” And, I’m very in love with you, she added in her mind, feeling stupid when he nodded in agreement with her previous words. “I mean, I liked it,” she assured him. “And, I hope you liked it too,” she let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding when she saw him smile. “Let's not make this awkward by putting too much thought into it… as long as we agree that our friendship is the most important thing, I don't see anything wrong with scratching that itch for each other.”

Scratching that itch.

The words felt dirty in her mouth.

She didn't want to just scratch that itch, she wanted everything with him.

“Are you sure?” Gendry asked, and contrary to her thoughts she nodded, before noticing him repeating those three cursed words under his breath, and putting a little bit more of space between their bodies. “Good,” he replied with a frown and pulled away enough that she had to loosen the grip of her legs around his hips.

She did her best to smile up at him.

“So, we agree?” she asked, and he nodded.

Maybe too enthusiastically.

“Yeah, yeah… you’re right,” he ruffled his hair and looked away. “It’s late, I gotta… I have a meeting with clients at first light in the morning, so I better go to sleep,” he looked back at her. “We’re fine, then?” he questioned, and she couldn’t help a chuckle.

“Yes, stupid… we’re fine,” she replied, and he walked closer to her and stole a quick peck from her lips that left her wanting more.

“Good night, Arry,” he said, and she sighed.

“Good night, Gen,” she replied, and she stared at his back as he disappeared behind his bedroom door.

Scratching that itch.

She was an idiot.

“You’re an idiot,” her friend confirmed her thoughts half an hour later, as she Facetimed with her. “Scratch that itch? Seriously, Arya?! What are you, ten?!”

“Shhh!” she looked around her room as if trying to confirm that he hadn’t gotten in there as she was distracted looking at the screen of her phone, and heard what her friend was practically screaming. “In my defense, that kiss left me dumb,” she bit her lower lip, thinking about his lips against hers, and his hands holding her thigh against his body.

“Yeah, yeah… I can tell it did,” Meera laughed, and she wanted to be there with her to throw a pillow to her face. “So, what are you now? Friends with benefits that pretend to be engaged?”

Arya rolled her eyes and looked down at the ring on her hand.

He had made it for her.

“Shut up,” Arya said, shaking her head. “We are just us,” she continued, with a sigh. “And, the plan has not stopped. I'm going to tell him how I feel, I just ... I need time. Now I know that he wants me, I just need to know if he can see me as more than her friend, so I don’t make a fool of myself when I do it.”

“And, how will you do that?” her friend asked, and she shrugged.

She had no idea.

“Well,” her friend continued with a bright smile, “I guess time will tell,” she nodded. “By the way, your mother called Bran earlier about some engagement gathering in Storm’s End, and he invited me. Is that good for you?” she asked, and suddenly Arya’s mood brightened.

“Of course, it is!” she smiled. “Can’t wait to see you, M. Because, you told him you’re coming, right?”

“I wouldn’t dream of missing it,” she grinned.

And, suddenly Arya didn’t hate the idea of their trip to Storm’s End, even if it was to celebrate a lie. She would see her family and friends, and if everything goes as planned, it would be a good opportunity to carry out her plan.

After saying goodbye to her friend, she put her phone on her nightstand and went to sleep, and her dreams that night were filled with him, and the memory of what had happened that night in their kitchen.


End file.
